100% NZ - Mt Cook

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A colleague of mine is playing his self-drive trip to NZ in April and I was very excited about it because the mention of New Zealand would always bring back fond memories of such a scenic, quiet and peaceful country. To give him an appreciation of how nice it is, I brought two albums (large!) to office of my second trip - the one which I did self-drive with the missus and parents in 2001. My first was on '97 after the final year exams, and since then I have kind of been bitten by the travel bug and affliation to this country and had successfully been influencing many friends to choose it as their next destination, and hardly any came back feeling regretted.

Of all the places, Mt Cook still remained as my favourite. No thrill ride, but simply mountains and trees. The treks were excellent but I regretted not staying there longer for my first trip so that I would have more time to explore the Hooker Valley walk. Mt Cook is actually quite an obscure place and hardly any travel agency in Singapore would include it in their itenary and I have to thank KS for showing me his pics - I still remember the one which had him swimming in the pond - braving the cold weather.

Among my friends who had been there, I would say that Jo and Su Hock trips were the most impressive. Jo went for two months and did practically anything one could think of - she went kayaking at Abel Tasman NP, sky-dived at Wanaka and stayed in this nice village called Glenochy where the whole town was mobilised and participated in the Lord of the Rings! For Su Hock, he was so inspired with the movie that he packed all the film locations in his tight schedule and engaged tour guides for personalised tours which brought him to places which were otherwise inaccessible.

I would very much like to include my pics in this blog but too bad digital pics were not common then. So I have got one from the net of the Mt Cook peak. This shot was almost identical to a certain frame which i remembered very well - it was morning and sun was slowly creeping in and there stood the snow-capped peak forming a strong contrast with the dark blue background, gradually turning to light-blue. Of course, there were the noisy keas (native birds which look like parrots) which we re chirping loudly as we left our car and walked towards the restaurnt at Hermitage for b/f. The moment was Unforgettable.