Day 3: Aoraki / Mount Cook Area

October 16: 

After saying goodbye to "the kids" at 3:30 am, we attempted to sleep until it was time to pick up rental car at 8:00 am.

The goal was to spend most of the day near Mount Cook.

It was raining for about the first hour of our drive out of Christchurch.

Because of that, we decided to skip the more scenic route and take the faster highway. About the time that we reached the turnoff toward Geraldine, the rain slowed to a drizzle and the clouds started to lift enough to see the Southern Alps in the distance.

We stopped at the bakery in Fairlie and tried a steak and cheese pie plus a raspberry donut.

The pie was delicious. The donut was meh.

Shortly past Fairlie, we saw bright yellow fields of canola/rapeseed.

We continue our drive to Lake Tekapo where we had to add warmer clothing

and took pictures of the Church of the Good Shepherd

We were too early in the season to see the blankets of lupines, but we did see a few isolated ones.

Parts of Lake Tekapo were incredibly blue!

We then drove to Lake Pukaki and stopped at several viewpoints. The water was icy cold!

We then drove along the southern edge on our way to Mount Cook Village.

We made several stops along the way.

We drove the Hooker Valley Road with the plan to walk Kea Point Track, but it was very crowded and there was no parking spots, so we drove the less crowded Tasman Valley Road.

We walked up a lot of steps on the trail 

to get to the Blue Lakes 

and the Tasmin River Viewpoint.

We also saw a couple of Paradise Shelducks near the parking lot.

From there, we drove to Twizel for dinner and to spend the night.