We woke up to a much clearer morning this morning. Not clear as such, but the rain was easing and we could actually see some of the surrounding mountains.

After packing up and checking out we contemplated our walk options and Liam voted on the longest walk. I am sure he came to regret this within the first half hour! Quite interestingly, the walks are not always marked with a distance and often only a duration. On the occasions when we have had distance and duration, it is obvious they allow a pace of 3km/hr. However this 3 hour return walk ended up being 13.5 km according to Colin’s GPS.

The walk was up the Hooker valley to the lake at the base of the Hooker glacier. There are 3 swing (suspension) bridges along the route and amazing views of Mueller glacier, Aoraki / Mount Cook and the surrounding peaks. The weather at the start of the walk was quite lovely and we almost got too hot in all our gear. As we crossed each river, you could see the effect of the last two days’ heavy rain in the ferocity and murkiness of the water. Getting closer to the glacial lake, the weather got colder, windier and rainier and we were very glad of having prepared with our warm and wet weather gear. Colin was delighted to be in 3 degrees (according to his watch). The rest of us weren’t so keen.

The glacial lake was not clear, again because of the recent torrential rain, but there were 3 or 4 icebergs floating in the lake. They had spots of the lovely glacial blue as did the glacier itself up on the mountain. This was quite a challenging walk for the kids, made possible only by chocolate and my allowing Liam to talk me through a Bakugan battle to distract him from his tiredness and aches. This is a strategy we discovered quite early on in the trip, which, while a little tedious and distracting from the scenery for me, does enable him to walk quite amazing distances.

Arriving back at our car just before 2pm, even Colin declared the walk enough for the day. There were a couple of much smaller walks to view points of the Tasman glacier and its lake, which we had contemplated, but decided not to do, with 4 hours driving to Christchurch and exhausted children. The drive to Christchurch was uneventful. There was the stretch back along Lake Pukaki – the beautiful glacial lake. Photos were disappointing, though the view with polarised glasses showed some amazing turquoise colour. After that we travelled along a nice flat road, through several small towns and one larger one, until arriving at Christchurch just after 6pm. We have a lovely room in an old manor house, with tall ceilings, ceiling roses and an (unused) fireplace.