We started by walking the popular Hooker Valley track just before 9am, and popular it was, even at that time. It's a mostly level, easy in-and-out trail, 10 kms total, that leads mostly through the Hooker Valley to a viewpoint from which you can see Mt Cook, the Hooker Glacier and Hooker Lake. Along the way you walk over three swing bridges crossing the Hooker River. The river looks and sounds very powerful as you cross it, and with the wind being rather gusty as you crossed the second and third bridges that impression was certainly enhanced. After the second swing bridge Mt Cook comes into view. We were thrilled to see all of Mt Cook in blue sky, without clouds obscuring it! As we walked closer, the views remained good until we approached the final viewpoint. Clouds had by then slowly moved in, partially or entirely obscuring Mt Cook. We waited for a while to see if the clouds would move on, but then figured we had some really nice pictures of Mt Cook from our walk to the viewpoint so we walked back. It was cold at the viewpoint as well, and had started raining a little. As it was cold when we started the walk as well, with strong gusts of wind on top of that, we had put on our rain jacket and pants to keep us warm and were happy to be wearing those.
After getting back to the car it was still early and Don badly wanted to do the Sealy Tarns track which starts very close to the carpark as well. The DOC description of this trail reads "Dubbed the ‘stairway to heaven’, 2200 steps take you straight up to the freshwater lakes of Sealy Tarns". Indeed much of the trail is comprised of stairs, in segments of 10 or 20 or more steps for a total of close to 2200 steps. The views over the Tasman valley and the Hooker valley from the trail were really nice, be it that Mt Cook and the Hooker valley were still mostly covered by cloud. Although the trail was mostly through vegetation, some of the higher sections were more exposed and at times the wind was gusty to the point that our hats were not safe, even with chin straps, and I was happy to reach the end of any exposed part. From the tarns the track continues on to the very popular Mueller hut, but for us reaching the tarns was enough of an achievement today. Needless to say that the way down was a lot faster than the way up.
We had a tailgate lunch at the car and then drove to Oamaru which is known for its little blue penguin colony. After a quick stop at the local Countdown for some groceries we set up camp at the Top 10, cooked supper and headed out to see the little blue penguins, the world's smallest penguin at just over 25 cm and about one kg. The penguin colony is a paid tourist attraction that is run as a long-term conservation program. The penguins are free to come and go as they please, but are offered nesting boxes to lay their eggs and leave their chicks in while they go to sea to fish. The nesting boxes protect the eggs and chicks from predators. For a price you can view the penguins come in from the sea for the night from a grandstand. They come ashore and then waddle - in small groups - to the area with the nesting boxes. Very cute. Don and I were wondering how these penguins compare in size to the fairy penguins we saw many years ago on Phillip Island near Melbourne. It turns out little blue penguins used to also be called fairy penguins but no longer. No photography was allowed during the general viewing but we took a few before the general viewing.
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