Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Aoraki and Fiords

Hello!
So we've been doing some awesome traveling (well, the traveling by bus has been a bit boring) and the sights I've seen are amazing. I hope my pictures do it some justice. Two days ago we were in Glentanner Park and then Mt. Cook village where we hiked into Hooker Valley and up to Hooker Lake where we ate lunch. The mountains and glaciers were beyond beautiful and I wish I could find some way to explain it better. We walked through dry, scrubby plains where we saw lots of plants, which I now know some names of, and by fresh, cold, clear glacial rivers/streams. I got to drink from one of these! then lunch by Hooker Lake/Glacier! For most of the time Aoraki/Mt. Cook (Aoraki is the Maori name for it) was towering over us and I couldn't stop looking at how stunning it was. So then we had to drive for a loong time yesterday to get to Te Anau but we did stop at a windfarm on the way which was sweet. I've really enjoyed learning Maori terms and I would recommend looking up some of their stories about Tane and Aoraki and others. Today we took a boat cruise around Milford Sound, which is actually a fiord not a sound, but that was sweet and we saw seals!
Ok, I only have 1 min left on this computer so i have to go but i'll type later!
LOVE,
Katie

1 comment:

tj said...

wow, sounds like so much fun.
i would love to get to drink straight from a glacial steam...

it sounds so beautiful. man i wish i was there instead of sitting here in class lol.

oh and it's really exciting that you get to learn some maori.

i think maybe i shoulld just quit school and travel the world learning languages.

or maybe i should finish school first.
i am just getting hit with wanderlust, and hit hard.

you lucky duck.