Mount Cook & Lake Pukaki

Sa, 28.01: after a frosty night at Lindis Campsite, we had breakfast in the car with sandwiches (luckily Fritz had made them because there were so many sandflies outside (the nasty version of mosquitoes).

At around 10 am, we set off. The weather was great! Warm 26 degrees and a clear blue sky!

First, we stopped at Lindis Pass, where there were lots of tourists, but the view was really nice. After a quick photo, we continued to Lake Pukaki, to Peters Lookout: here, too, hundreds of tourists, especially Asians, were taking thousands of photos and having proper photoshoots.

Lake Pukaki (glacier lake) has an absolutely fantastic color: neon turquoise! It looks so surreal, and it's probably the most beautiful thing I've seen here.

In the background of Lake Pukaki, the glacier mountain range stretched out.

We drove around the lake to Mount Cook (the highest mountain in New Zealand) and started the Hooker Valley Track: estimated time (round trip) 3 hours.

We arrived in an hour and only took 45 minutes to return 💪

The endpoint of the track: a grayish lake with huge ice floes floating in it. I didn't find it half as beautiful as the track itself. I particularly liked the wooden walkways and suspension bridges (although I was a bit uncertain about the latter).

Back at the parking lot, we cooked before heading to the next free campsite: Poaka Lake Campsite. Due to the good weather, the sky was absolutely clear in the evening/night, so Fritz was able to take some really great pictures of his tent and the starry sky!