Friday morning at ten to seven we took a taxi from the holiday park where the RV was parked, to downtown Christchurch. There we joined a bus tour that picked up at a downtown hotel at 7:30. The Great Sights company runs a tour bus each way between Christchurch and Queenstown, every day. The buses meet at Mt. Cook Village, so we could ride up to Mt. Cook in one bus, spend 90 minutes, and ride back in the other bus.
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The weather forecast had been claiming for two days that Friday would be sunny over the center of the island. It didn't seem that way when we walked through a drizzle of rain to board the bus! But the clouds began to break in an hour and by the time we were nearing Lake Tekapo, there were only scattered clouds and through the bus windshield we could see Aoraki rising.
The foot of Lake Tekapo is famed as a view sight. All the tour coaches and most independent tourists stop there.
They also stop 30km further on, at Peter's Lookout on Lake Pukaki.
Great Sights pushes the ski-plane adventures (land on a glacier for $300), and if anyone signs up for that, the coach stops a little further up at the ski-plane airport. Ours did and from the road we grabbed this shot, with sheep.
Scenery isn't scenery without some sheep.
That's Aoraki right center, and Mt. Tasman, almost as high but further back, left center.
At Mt. Cook village we spent most of our 90-minute turnaround taking a walk. Here's The Mountain at our closest approach.
Aoraki isn't the whole show. Just to its left is a grand ridge with the humbling name of The Footstool.
Here's us, standing in This panorama.
Then we got on the bus and returned through very pretty country to Christchurch.
The driver was very accommodating (as almost all New Zealand people are) and let us out right in front of our campground, saving us a taxi fare from downtown. (P.S. a few extra pics in the slideshow
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