MOUNT COOK I: HOW I SETTLED DOWN
- coupkovasvatava
- Feb 5, 2017
- 2 min read
For the first time in my (short) life I have my own room and a (almost proper) bed! Except from that there is mum´s and dad´s bedroom, a bathroom and a living area with a small kitchen. And a nice wooden porch with beautiful views of the Southern Alps, covered in snow and ice. This is a small “staff” house where we can stay as long as dad works for the company organizing helicopter hikes on the nearby Tasman glacier.
I like it – it is sunny and warm which means I can hang about nappy-free most of the time. Well, I haven´t given up poos and all that other stuff, no way. But daddy bought me a potty and mum has started to train me. Not that I care much, as demonstrated by the unidentifiable dark spots randomly spaced all over the carpet in the living room and recently also parent´s bedroom since I am more mobile every day.
Mount Cook Village is a place very quiet and pretty busy at the same time. Hundreds of tourists come here every day, but only three hundred people live here permanently over the summer, three times less in winter. 95 % of them are... yes, good guess: guides. Let´s just have our closest neighbours like an example: house No 1: Kiwis Anna, Lewis, Jane - guides, house No 2: Japanese couple Tai - a guide – and Kimi – a non guide, house No 3: it´s us. See? This “guiding” syndrome reduces the number of people actually present in the village by another 85 %. Mums you can count on the fingers of one hand, kids maybe on the fingers of both. There are two cafes, two pubs and a school (!). The nearest town is 55-km distant Twizel. Pretty remote, aye?
Anyway, when we arrived the first day, unpacked both cars and filled wardrobes and cupboard with (mainly my toys and dad´s climbing, tramping, mountaineering, guiding...) stuff, everything was great and we all looked forward to starting our “normal people” life. Interested how successful we were? Check the blog post MOUNT COOK II: MY EVERYDAY LIFE.
Your Annie
Some facts
When: 4. 2. 2017 Where: Aoraki Mount Cook Village (New Zealand)
How: car
How long: 2,5 hr. How far: 209*2 = 418 km
