We climbed to a viewpoint and looked up at Aoraki/Mt Cook, the tallest mountain in the Southern Alps and our entire perspective shifted. The unfortunate consequence of coming here was that most of what we had seen over the last couple of months was suddenly reduced to merely beautiful... This is a whole new category of spectacular.

Aoraki means "cloud piercer" in Maori and the mountain stands majestically head and shoulders above the glacier capped mountains surrounding it. We lucked out with a beautiful clear morning for hiking and and camped the first night against a valley recently vacated by retreating glaciers. Looking up, huge fields of ice cracked and groaned slowly as as they crawled towards the edge of the cliffs and plunged in earth-shattering roars thousands of feet down the mountain face. It was loud enough that we lay awake in the tent late into the night shivering as the noise seemed to rattle the tent.

Since then, it has slipped back into a mix of mundane and beautiful. We stopped into a local town with a petrol station and cafe and visited the only barber, the boys leaving a small mountain of blond hair on his floor. (They were mistaken for girls one too many times and finally asked for haircuts.) Mary booked dentist appointments for all of us in Christchurch and she visited the dermatologist. Much Fun.

As time is running short, we are progressing Northward again.