I now know why this country is called New Zealand: for me, taking a short walk–or ‘tramp’ as it’s called here–near the base of Mt. Cook has indeed given me a “New Zeal”. Corny, I know, but I really enjoyed my walk so go easy on me!

Squiffy ducks out at times like this and writes her travel diary over a juice in a nearby cafe, whilst I wander off for a walk surrounded by nature and, oftentimes, other tourists doing much the same. So as not to keep the good lady waiting, I limited myself to only an hour of wandering, just enough time to cross a couple of swing-bridges in Hooker Valley to get that all important vista towards Mt. Cook from the valley floor.

(Claire adds – I did offer to drive him to the start of another 1 hour track but he politely declined. I think he needs to take this new tramping thing one step at a time… well done DaveB.)

(DaveB adds – The second walk was to the foot of a glacier. Given that we’ll soon be stood atop a glacier, I deemed the walk surplus to requirements.)

(DaveB adds further – Since when did we start adding “Name adds” comments to the bottom of our posts?!)

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