Ray of Sunshine Travel

It’s another week in good ol’ Dunners (Dunedin)!

As a head’s up, my posts are going to get (even more) sporadic over these next couple weeks. Good grief, I’ve still got last week’s to write. I’ll also be traveling next week, then have finals (spoilers), so I may not be able to make another post until after I’m home on June 21st. Gosh, that date is getting closer and closer. Only 22ish days!

Alright, so let me rewind to Week 13. I was coping with losing Grandpa (still am, but doing okay), and I’m so grateful to all my friends, both here and at home, who reached out and let me lean on them this week. A couple of my amazing flatmates even got me flowers.

Other highlights of the week involved a baking and movie night with friends, and my third flax-weaving class. This week we made a four-cornered basket, or kete. I was pretty happy with how it turned out!

This weekend was a visual stunner. Destination? Mt. Cook, the highest point in New Zealand.

A decent sized group of us from ISA ended up going, though not all of us stuck together the whole time. We left Dunedin at the very early hour of 5 am on Friday and headed towards Cook. Big shoutout to Megan for driving! Once the sun finally came up, the views were gorgeous (surprise, surprise).

We got to the visitor’s center at Mount Cook Village (such a cool building, I could stay there a long time) and talked with some Department of Conservation people. Logan, Megan and I had hoped to at least get up to Mueller Hut, a very popular hike, for a little while and maybe even spend the night there, but the DOC people told us we wouldn’t be able to get up without ice picks and crampons and that there was bad weather coming the next day. I was pretty bummed.

So the three of us went to a nearby hostel and booked for the night. We then met up with the rest of the ISA people and friends and began the long ascent. We knew there were a bunch of stairs (later learned about 2,000) up to the lookout point, and then it was rock scrambling after that, a good portion of which was covered with snow. We planned to go up as far as we felt safe.

What a climb, but what a view.

That’s good ol’ Mt. Cook in the distance, FYI; we’re not actually summiting the highest point in New Zealand! Definitely got some great views of it though. This picture was taken from the lookout point, so we were just about to begin the rock scrambling part.

Not going to lie, it was pretty steep at points!

We kept talking to people who were coming down about how far they thought it was safe for us to go up without crampons, and we kept getting really mixed reviews. We decided to keep plugging along as far as we could, even after we got into snow.

Before we knew it, we had gotten to the top of the ridgeline in one piece. Mueller wasn’t much further, and we didn’t think there would be much more elevation gain getting there, so we decided to keep trucking along.

The mountains were really ‘snowing’ off that morning (haha, sorry, couldn’t resist). Believe it or not, it was like 45-50 Fahrenheit where the sun was shining.

After a short hike, we rounded the bend and saw a beautiful sight – the hut!

I was so excited that we made it all the way up; it was so worth all of those stairs and somewhat slippery slopes. We stopped and broke for lunch at the hut, because when else are you going to get such great views with your peanut butter and jelly?

Unfortunately, we couldn’t spend too much time up there because we were worried about the snow refreezing on us and it getting dark. Thus, we began the long descent.

We then got to the point we had been dreading while climbing up: the snow-covered rock scramble. Our method of getting down was certainly inglorious (and quite hilarious, looking back), but at least it kept us safe!

And Mt. Cook (and surrounding mountains) somehow looked even more gorgeous in the afternoon.

We eventually all made it safely to the bottom, though my knees were definitely feeling the stairs. I was really glad I only had a day pack on and not a full pack; that would have been brutal.

Megan, Logan and I bid goodbye to the rest of our ISA friends and went to go check into our hostel. We were pretty pumped that you could check out an emergency teddy bear if you had forgotten yours.

We then grabbed dinner at a local restaurant and celebrated Megan’s birthday with a piece of carrot cake (delicious, if you were wondering).

After a 5 am wakeup and 6+ hour hike, we were pretty zonked, so it was bedtime for us!

In the morning, we walked over close to a glacier – my first one! – near the foot of Mount Cook. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but still pretty cool. The top of it is covered in dirt, so it’s kind of hard to spot in the pictures, but it’s right behind the lake. We had a couple of our old friends, kea, pay us a visit too.

We spent a little more time at the visitor’s center, then packed up and headed out. It was pretty drizzly near the base of the mountain, but as we drove out it kept getting sunnier. So pretty!

Our first stop that morning was the Clay Cliffs. We had to go a bit off the beaten path to reach them, but it was definitely worth it! It was just so suddenly and drastically different from the surrounding mountains.

The drive was gorgeous as usual, especially since it was so sunny.

We made a quick stop again at the Salmon Farm and Oamaru (read more about them in my blog for Week 12). We also stopped at the Katiki Point lighthouse again, and I got some decent pictures of the yellow-eyed penguins this time! We were also there at good ol’ Golden Hour this time, so it was even more stunning.

We then headed back to Dunedin and parted ways. I’ve loved having three-day weekends because I can travel more, but it’s also nice to have only two-day trips every once in a while so that I can catch up, especially with finals getting closer.

Okie doke, artichokes; I’ll see if I can put out another blog before I leave, but no promises. Until then, whenever that may be!