{"id":30837,"date":"2017-03-07T11:35:47","date_gmt":"2017-03-07T10:35:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peregrinusmundi.com\/sur-la-route-mont-cook-west-coast\/"},"modified":"2020-07-06T10:04:46","modified_gmt":"2020-07-06T08:04:46","slug":"on-the-road-mount-cook-to-westcoast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peregrinusmundi.com\/en\/on-the-road-mount-cook-to-westcoast\/","title":{"rendered":"On the road. Mount Cook to the Westcoast"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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After four days of hiking<\/strong><\/a>, I leave Mount Cook and the Glentanner campground to go to Lake Tekapo, another huge lake in the region. Like a few days before, I cycle along Pukaki Lake and its fabulous turquoise blue water for around thirty kilometers. Having recovered the intersection with the main road, I continue towards Lake Tekapo. A small information center sells salmon sashimi at the end of the lake. I take this opportunity to buy some despite the price and I have lunch outside enjoying the view of the lake and Mount Cook in the background. The salmon has an incredible melting flesh. It comes from one of the many salmon farms nearby.<\/p>

I continue my route by following the Lake Tekapo Alternative Route Trail, a section of the A2O trail, Alpes to Ocean, which connects Mount Cook \/ Lake Tekapo to Oamaru on the East coast of the South Island. The track runs along the other side of Lake Pukaki and I enjoy the smell of pines and the song of cicadas in the warm afternoon atmosphere. I climb two hundred meters to reach a plateau where the Tekapo Canal is located, which brings water from Lake Tekapo into Lake Pukaki. The canal is part of a system of hydroelectric dams organized throughout the Mackenzie Basin region. A farm raises salmon in the canal. The breeders are feeding the fish when I pass and seagulls spin in the air. I spend around forty kilometers along the canal on an almost flat track (hallelujah), but the wind is blowing hard. Just before Tekapo, I pass a small hydroelectric power station and finally arrive at the village at the end of the lake of the same name. I stop at a small campsite, by the lake and spend the evening chatting with two other cyclists.<\/p>

The next morning is a sightseeing tour for me. Small plane flight with Air Safari. The trip is supposed to fly over Lake Tekapo, the peaks of the region including Mount Cook, the various local glaciers and the Fox and Franz Joseph glaciers located on the West Coast. From Mount Cook to the west coast, which I will reach in a few days, is quickly reach on a plane. Only the high mountain range separates the two regions. But the weather is overcast with a sea of \u200b\u200bclouds at the level of the West coast, making observation of the Fox and Franz Joseph glaciers impossible. The flight still takes place but the route will be a little different. The pilot offers me to sit in the cockpit in place of the co-pilot, which I accept with pleasure. About fifteen passengers take their places in the back and we fly away. Lake Tekapo and its region reveal all their beauty from the sky. We fly over the mountain ranges with some turbulence. The wind is blowing hard outside. The Tasman and Hooker glaciers that I visited a few days ago reveal their impressive size. We take height and Mount Cook appears wrapped in a sea of \u200b\u200bclouds. I see the clouds spinning on its crest, it must really be a very very strong wind outside. The plane spins around the top, which turns on my stomach a bit. On the coast, a sea of \u200b\u200bcloud spreads out as far as the eye can see. After forty five minutes of flying over the mountains, we leave in the opposite direction to land an hour later at the small airport from which we departed. I can hardly believe that the flight is already over, dazzled by what I have just seen. The bad weather and a lack of explanations on the region from the pilot spoiled the experience a little but the view remains very beautiful.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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