Peak Time to Visit New Zealand
“Nowhere does scenery better than New Zealand and it doesn’t get more dramatic than the South Island’s ruggedly beautiful Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park, where I’ve stumbled on a postcard perspective of the country’s highest mountain from a far more attainable vantage,” Chantay Logan writes for Australia’s Sunshine Coast Daily.
“My calves may be complaining, but my exertions, bookended by bottomless hot choccies and deliciously trashy TV in the cosiest of hotel rooms at The Hermitage, are dwarfed by the efforts of those whose feet have taken them all the way.
“Hiking options in the park are unparalleled and the most popular tracks are very well-maintained. The crisp clime ensures they’re not the sweaty slog they would be back home, while the scarcity of poisonous bitey things gives you the confidence to take the path less travelled.
“The Tasman Glacier Track offers the most panorama for your puff – an easy, flat 30-minute walk will take you through a rocky lunar-like landscape to the terminal lake.
“The icebergs, like ghost ships in a milky harbour, are a sobering reminder that the Tasman Glacier is shrinking, some sources say by a very visible 480 to 820 metres a year – melting and ‘calving’ at an ever more rapid rate. In the ‘90s when I first visited this region, tourists trekked up to terminal faces (the end point, in layman’s terms) of New Zealand’s famous glaciers; now you’ll need help to get up close and personal.”
Original article by Chantay Logan, Sunshine Coast Daily, November 19, 2017.
