MONZA-Morgans Over New Zealand Again: Day 21- Another Restful Day at Mt. Cook

This is the second free day at Mt. Cook, so we slept as late as possible so as not to miss breakfast. I threw a load of laundry into the washer when we went to breakfast. After breakfast, I finished two more loads of laundry while writing blogs Day 19 and 20. The fog lifted by about 11 AM.

Mt Cook from our deck this morning

First chore of the day, the laundry

Cocktails last evening- Richard, Susan, Maggie and Me

Watching movies in the Sir Edmund Hilary Museum

We hadn't watched all the films at the Museum, so we headed up and found others watching movies. It was a repeat film for us….. and we missed the other film we hadn't seen by arriving a couple of minutes late.

As we had been very lazy about walking the last couple of days, and everyone else had been doing walks/hikes, we decided to go outside and do the best I could do. We picked the 30 minute round trip walk to the water towers that started behind the hotel.

Starting Off For A Walk

Philip on walk

Path we are heading up.

See the water towers about 1/2 up the picture. That was our goal.

Bench Mark

The path had a benchmark, early in the game, and of course I had to stop and rest.

Back of hotel from walk

The path got steeper and steeper, with high boulders for steps and about 1/3 of the way up, we decided that it was too dangerous for me at this point. So we turned around and came back down the hill. Had we both had on hiking boots,we probably could have continued, but our shoes had pretty smooth soles. That is my excuse anyway. I was proud that I was quite a bit stronger, and was able to climb uphill a lot easier (remember back surgery now 10 weeks ago).

Made it this far on our walk

From the walk

Others in the group had gone on 4X4 and Argo tour to see the Glacier. This is the walk they had to do after bouncing and bouncing along the road. We had skipped doing this trip as it was too harsh for me (and some of them).

This is what the others did climb the hill.

Poor Susan

Susan is afraid of heights and didn't know heights were a part of the trip. She was mighty scared.

Visitor Center

Since our 1/2 hour walk was cut short, we headed on another path down to the Mt Cook Visitor Centre. It was absolutely fascinating. The Maori's are the indigenous people of New Zealand.

Maori fashion

Maori "Blouse" of Flax leaves

Maori Skirt

Shoes and leggings

Memorial Book

Over 200 people have died on the mountains around there since the late 1800's. Many from falling, avalanches, and getting stuck in bad weather. Also lightening strikes.

Early Lady Climber

This is the first lady climber in the early 1900's. She wore a skirt over her bloomers, and this very fancy blouse for her climbing.

Sir Edmund HilaryStatue by the hotel

Climbing Hut

This is an old climbing hut. Currently there are 17 huts in the National Park that can be used by climbers to get away from the cold of the night. They are placed up the mountains.

We headed back up to the hotel after at least one hour at the museum.

When we arrived back at the hotel, we found that Lyle had finally arrived to join the trip in his Torgan (his Morgan never made it here, so he has a Toyota hire car- a Torgan)