Southern wild

Mount Cook and the Mackenzie Country feature in the March/April issue of the Australian Geographic. “Mt Cook lies within the Southern Alps, a series of mountain ranges stretching along the entire South Island. The mountains began to form some 45 million years ago, when the Pacific and Indo-Australian tectonic plates collided. They continue to rise today – Mt Cook grows by almost a centimetre each year. Climbing and hiking – or ‘tramping’, as New Zealanders call it – here is safest during spring and summer. In winter, the landscape is blanketed in white, and Mount Cook Village becomes a cosy retreat.”