I’m running out of steam for my blog post catch up. 🙃
Can’t really tell it to month story and then leave the last few days out of it, though, I guess.
I’m just… tired, having only gotten make an hour or two of sleep last night and looking at a 28ish-hour flight home.
🥱
So cool that i even got the chance to travel far enough to have such a long return trip!
I’m currently sitting in the Melbourne Australia airport, Terminal B, Gate 11, waiting for my flight to LA after flying from Christchurch to here just a little bit ago.
I’m both… wanting to go home and really not wanting to go home at the same time. So… mixed feelings.
But this post is about Cook’s Hooker, so… I’d best be getting on with that.
Let’s see, I woke up in the morning to realize that I had parked Us in the wrong section of the campsite, having put us in what looked like the long-term section. Fortunately, nobody bothered us about it. 🙂
The sky was completely overcast, but we still had hopes that the forecast might clear up as it said it was going to.
With that hope hanging on, we started the drive from our campsite over to mount Cook’s Hooker track. That had seemed like it could be a really beautiful hike, and despite my physical struggles, it seemed like I might be able to do it, as it was rated for families. 🙃
As we drove, the sun broke through the clouds, and the more we drove, the clearer or got. 😊
Mount Cook started peaking its head out of the clouds, and as we begin driving around Lake Pukaki, the sun illuminated the lake in such a way to show some of its brilliant blueness. I think it was the blueness that I had expected to see from the lake next to Queenstown that I kind of got little glimpses of when we were there, but the lake at Queenstown never really showed the vibrant blue color that I thought it was supposed to be.
Lake Pukaki, on the other hand, did. 😊
We stopped to take some pictures of the mountains across the lake as the clouds lifted, and then we continued on the drive up to the parking lot where the hooker track (and several other tracks) began.
Knowing that I was going to be walking the track like an old man, I started out earlier than Chase, so as not to show him down. I was literally just shuffling along as the gazillions of tourists passed me along the way. 🙃
In some ways, it was actually really nice to walk that slowly. To just soak up the views all around me, to watch the people as they walked along. It was easily one of, if not the, busiest tourist areas that we’d been to, but it was still a lovely walk with beautiful vistas all around.
Because it had rained recently, the lakes at the base of each little basin, and the rivers coming out of them weren’t there normal bright blue: Instead, they were gray with perhaps a barely noticeable greenish hue.
I plotted along, like the tortoise and the tortoise and the hare, slowly just one step after another. Periodically, I would run into steps that went down, which I took extremely slowly, as every step hurt when I was going down.
It’s been a very slow recovery from the Earnslaw hike. 🙃
Hopefully, I am actually recovering. 🤞
Chase passed me along the trail as I was off to one side and a lookout taking pictures. He didn’t see me or hear me when I yelled to him, and since we were both going to the same place, I didn’t worry about trying to get his attention again. I just continued plotting along at my painfully slow pace. 🙃
The track was one of those where you can see a lot of the beauty from the trailhead, but the further you go, the more the picture opens up to view, and the prettier it gets.
The final vista, at least for the hooker track, is coming up over the hill and looking down on the lake that’s at the base of the cook glacier which, of course, is at the base of Mount Cook. 😊
It took me a few minutes to locate Chase among the gazillions of tourists who are all around, but I finally found him sitting off by himself a little ways away from most of the rest of the tourists. I wandered down the hill, across the rocks, and over to him.
Chase and I chatted for a little bit, and he told me that he’d already gone swimming in The frigid waters of the lake which we found were about 37° (3 celsius). 🥶
Nice!
There were some icebergs in the middle of the lake, and I thought it would be fun to swim out to the iceberg, and do a little Cliff jump off the iceberg into the crazy-cold water. That, of course, was completely not recommended, as the water was so cold as to be dangerous to stay in for very long.
I noticed that the two biggest icebergs were much closer to the far side of the lake than our side of the lake, so I decided to see if I could make it over. I wandered a way from where Chase was and headed around the lake, only to run into the gushing River that exits one Lake and goes toward the next Lake before leaving that Lake and going down to Lake Pukaki.
Google keeps censoring it when I try and say Lake b*****. Google, I’m saying Pukaki. 🙃
Anyway, the river was rushing quickly enough, and it was frigid enough, that I just walking out into it was quite painful on my legs very quickly. Certainly, I could have done it, but I wasn’t in the mood to potentially get washed downstream and get completely soaked, along with my backpack and phone and whatnot.
That was probably a good idea also because I survived, 🙃 Having not risked my life to try and cliff jump off an iceberg. That said, as much as it might not sound like it, I am pretty careful in my craziness. Chase can probably vouch for that out here on this trip. I’ve done lots of things that risk minor injury (as y’all have read about 🙃), but I don’t do much at all that risks death.
Anyway, I went back to where Chase was after hanging out on a big boulder by the river and just taking in the scenery. Once back over to chase, I started trying to create a beach that would make it easier for other people to wait out into the water and take the polar Bear plunge, if they so desired. It was a very Rocky shore, which made it challenging to even get out, let alone swim. And once you were done swimming, the rocky shore was an obstacle to get back to shore when you’re already quite cold. 🙃
I spent probably 45 minutes or an hour slowly clearing rocks off the shore and out of the water, trying to make it easier to walk out. It was very cold work. Periodically, I had to walk back out to the shore to warm up, as my legs and hands would be so cold they hurt.
To some degree, I was successful in my efforts, but I gave up after that hour or so because the water was shallow enough for long enough that after going out a good ways, it was still only like knee deep, which meant I would be clearing rocks all day to reach my gosh.
So… having made it a little easier for polar bear swimmers to frolic in the icy goodness of the big bright blue (currently gray) lake, I partook of it myself. 🥶 Swimming for a little bit before coming back in. I think all my wading helped me acclimatize, as I was able to stay in for a little bit before getting it.
It brought back memories of a hike I did with friends many years ago in Utah where, having hiked to a hot springs a good bit into the middle of nowhere in the middle of a frigid, snowy winter, we had a little competition to see who could lay the longest in the icy creek that was literally right next to the hot springs.
It was so cold out that the wet hair on your head would freeze while the rest of you enjoyed the hot, steamy, goodness.
Those were fun times back then. I really miss those days. Great friends, fun adventures.
Anyway, I told chase that story. After that, I left him to nap a little bit while wandered around just… thinking.
Somewhere around 7:00, I started heading back, once again knowing that my pace would be super slow. I think it was faster on the way back, my legs hurting a little bit less than they did on the way up. That was nice. I was still being passed by everyone, but not at quite as quick a pace. 😊
There happened to be a camping site right there at the base of the trail, so instead of looking around for another place to stay that night, chase and I just paid the fee and stayed right there. That was nice, as we were both pretty tired, and it was nice to have a place that we already knew to go to.
We wandered over to the area near the visitor center where Chase was able to get himself a hot shower, and then we headed back to the campsite where we crashed for the night.
Beautiful day. Beautiful hike. The clouds cleared up and gave us tremendous views. It was just lovely. 😊
Love and hugs to all. 😊
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 