Paddling in the glacial pool at Mt Aoraki

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I looked at the brochure and felt that paddling on a glacial pool would be right up my alley and a nice variation to riding every day. On this clear day the views of Aoraki were sublime, just making for a complete day of enjoyment.
If you were to do the Alps to Ocean trail according to the detail notes, then you would head up the eastern side of lake Pukaki towards Mount Cook Village and fly in a helicopter to get across the water. It was only me on this ride and I wasn’t in the position to pay the costs for a self charter, so I elected to go up and down the western side.

Being smooth bitumen it was also a lot faster surface to travel on; Google maps indicated the distance to be 65km, 377m rise with an estimated 3 1/2 hour travelling time.  There wasn’t time left for me to complete the journey if I did that both ways (and I did not fancy riding up hill ), so I caught a bus up to the village and rode back.
 I could see why a chopper was required on the other side as there was  quite a delta formed with the glaciated runoff into the lake.
I arrived before lunch and took the opportunity to be on a commercial paddling trip on the glacial pool.
The water is grey due to the ground up dust from the mountain rocks forming a slurry. The ice bergs are filthy too from all that grinding action.
After which, there was a celebration with some Scotch on the glacial ice rocks.

 Mt Aoraki, so much better sounding that Mt Cook: kick me - what a stunning day.

As much as I would like to stay here longer to do some hiking, there wasn’t time. Turn tail: the ride down the hill was exhilarating with the evening winds pumping down the valley really boosting my speed, I travelled past Twizel to Otemata on the bitumen./div>
This night, I would much of preferred to have found a nice tent site to stay in rather than in a cabin by the main road. In fact, I carted my tent all the way on this trip and didn’t end up using it ! In hindsight I could also have slotted in that extra day up here and bypassed the last day, but who has a crystal ball ?
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