Magnificent Mt. Cook

We started off boarding a private charter flight only for our tour group. We landed at Mt. Cook National Park. The only way you can get to this park is by plane. The airport basically is one runway that lands in the middle of the Southern Alps. The mountains are absolutely spectacular with snow covered tops and glaciers gleaming in the light. We lucked out and had a gorgeous day with small puffy clouds in between the mountains and a clear blue sky. It was PERFECT for the snowy mountain tops. We had a nice lunch at a really neat lodge overlooking the mountains.

Some of us elected to take a helicopter ride over the park. We got real close to the mountains and were able to see the blue/green lake between the valleys that was fed by a glacier. (That’s why the water was so colorful; it reminded us of the water in the Caribbean) We landed right on top of a snow covered mountain so we could take some really nice pictures. We got out and took some great pictures, we even managed to throw a few snow balls. :-)

We then got back on our plane and headed to a quaint little town called Te Anau. We landed between sheep pastures. It was so cute as some of the baby lambs started to run away as our plane got closer to the ground.

We got lucky as this time of year the lambs are still with their Momma’s. After 6 weeks they get separated. There’s approximately 41 million sheep in New Zealand compared to a little over 4 million people.