We were recommended to go to Mount Cook, seeing as it is Australasia's highest mountain peak coming in at over 10,000 ft. Mount Cook is situated in Aoraki National Park, where there are 27 mountains, 22 of which are the highest in Australasia. We were staying at the YHA which was a great little place, had a cabin feel to it. The village (if they could call it that) had no supermarket, consisted of about 10 buildings and had no phone reception. The view from our room was awesome! We were lucky enough to get AMAZING weather for the two days we were there for, I mean cloudless.

Nilesh and Jo recommended the Red Tarns track at sunset, as the sun sets on Mount Cook leaving a red glow glazed all over the mountain. Little did we know, (and why didn't they tell us?!) that the track was over 1000 steps long! Oh. My. God. Steps are actually the bane of my life, and not being prepared for this was not cool. And, to add to it all, we were late leaving the hostel because of my faffing around, so we had to like sprint up to make it in time for sunset. We made it - with 5 minutes to spare. You'll see from the photos how magnificient the view was, but I was a little disappointed as you couldn't see the whole mountain, just 3/4 of it.

I think I took over 50 photos that evening. but I've just put a small selection so I don't bore you :)

The next day, whilst sipping on some Cosmopolitans at the 5* Hermitage hotel round the corner, I wanted to take more photos at sunset. Funnily enough, the view was better this evening! Even though we were on ground level, we could see more of Mount Cook. So, again, a 100 more photos.

After a very relaxed two days in this quiet retreat, it was on our way to Christchurch. It's typical that the weather has now decided to turn very amazing, in our last week in NZ. We're looking at about 20degrees +. Tomorrow we're going to Kaikoura, a small fishing town not far from Christchurch - we've heard great stuff about it (especially the whole catch-your-fish-and-it-eat thing) so I'm looking forward to that. Not sure if I speak for Ketan on the fish side of it!

It's only 1 week till we leave now, and we've still got a bit to fit in. Some advice please - should I go to Akaroa for some dolphin swimming or stay in Christchurch for a well-renowned wine tasting day tour? Hmm...