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Articles: The total Mt Cook Experience!

Saturday, September 09, 2006 - 07:05 AM, (1063 Reads)

We travelled to Mt Cook last weekend (1st Sept) with friends, Ian and Edna who had invited us following a promotion to the Hermitage for NZ residents.

Mt Cook was fully visible as we came round Lake Pukaki but on the way up the lake to the hotel, our interest was taken with clouds of smoke coming from a nearby mountain! This turned out to be a wildfire way up high and there were numerous helicopter and fixed wing plane crews all getting together to dump tons of water up there. We watched the fixed wing plane take off on a road in front of the Hermitage, into increasing high winds. Admiring the pilot, we didn't know what was going to happen....... Those increasing winds increased to storm-force and our little chalet rocked with each gust through the whole night! Then the rain poured down and of course, put out the mountain fire! The extreme winds also put out the entire area of power including the whole of Timaru! We wondered during the night if our pretty stable chalet was going to take off!

That rainy day didn't improve and we had no power (or heat) in our booked chalet. on moaning to the reception we were offered two rooms in the luxury Aoraki Wing with floor to ceiling windows on this stormy mountain scene. Had it's beautiful moments.

These are some of the photos: 1st is enjoying the wonderful cuisine in the restaurant - The next morning through these huge windows we viewed this - a real treat!

This final day was fabulous - you would never know there had been this huge storm! Here we are enjoying a really good coffee out on the verandah.

Mt Cook must be a MUST BE for every New Zealander!

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