In the Sky with Diamonds

Icebergs, tussock plains, mountains and stars… they’re the siren song of the south.

Words: Rosemarie White  Photographs: Guy Frederick

THE SOUND OF ICEBERGS shearing away from a glacier is explosive. It certainly concentrates the mind when kayaking in huge crevasses and around walls of fractured ice that tower precariously above our tiny, frail sea kayaks. Sea kayaking on glacial lakes isn’t something immediately associated with the Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park and the term ‘calving’ seems more bovine than geological.

Guide Chance finds the Mueller Glacier fascinating in every stage of its 450-year descent down the Southern Alps. The annual snowfall is compacted and pushed down a rocky chute. Grinding noisily and remorselessly, it carries tonnes of rock and shingle, casualties of its single-minded journey. As the pressure is released at the bottom of the chute, the glacier calves in technicolour brillance with full subwoofer effect. Chance steers us into caverns of eerie blue and green between house-sized chunks of glacier that bob unsteadily in milky, impenetrable Mueller Lake. Thunderclaps of collapsing ice walls silence us. I skittle the kayak away through a sea of shattered, glittering ice. It’s like wading through diamonds. Aoraki, looming in the background, is a reminder that this is New Zealand, not Alaska or Iceland.

The Mackenzie Country seems like a parallel universe…an imaginary land; a remote high plateau with snow-covered mountains, brilliantly clear air, vast snow-fed lakes and acres and acres of golden tussock. It’s one of those places in every New Zealander’s heart, instantly recognized but, strangely, little visited by them.

We drive from Christchurch (3.5 hours) as there are no scheduled air services to the Aoraki/Mt Cook Airport. Route 72 skirts the foothills of the Southern Alps to avoid the long straight slog over the Canterbury Plains and wends through Geraldine to the hamlet of Burkes Pass that marks the start of the Mackenzie plain. We leave overcast claggy weather behind and climb up into perfect, cloudless sunshine. It’s like climbing a staircase into another world.

The huge glacial lakes, Tekapo and Pukaki, sparkle with their milky cast. The venerable Hermitage at Mt Cook village has recently had a facelift and the addition of a glam five-storey wing. It’s awe-inspiring to see Aoraki sitting majestically at the top of the Hooker Valley and watch through a bedroom window as the mountain turns pink and then purple as the sun sets.

Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park is a World Heritage Park and it’s a sad fact that most New Zealanders regard it as worthy of only a day trip. The 70,000 hectare park has approximately 140 peaks over 2000m high, 72 named glaciers which cover 40% of the area and some of the rarest and most curious vegetation in New Zealand. Craig from Discovery Tours collects us from the Hermitage and after some discussion suggests a walk based on our interests and the time available. The Hooker Glacier walk takes about three hours of modest effort among the strange flora and fauna that thrive in this hostile alpine environment. The spectacular Mt Cook lily (Ranunculus lyallii) flowers in December and January but the tiny and elusive mountain edelweiss can be seen for much of the year if one knows where to look. Also on show are the fearsome spaniard grass (Aciphylla horrida) and the divaricating coprosma, a singular plant that assumes the foetal position and grows hunched into a ball with its spine protecting its leaves. While certainly interesting and demonstrably well evolved, they look like botanical nutters.

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