Woke up bright and early so watched the sun come up slowly through the clouds, there was lots of snow through the night, you could see the change in the line on the mountain.
After breakfast we set off for Mount Cook and a hike to the base. Stunning! It was cold but very sunny, and about half way to the base it started snowing.....everywhere you looked was amazing views and then we rounded the final corner to see the glacier at the base of the Mount Cook....wow! Such a beautiful place.
From there we headed to Omaru for a wander (I bought trainers and running stuff, how sad am I missing it!) then onto camp next to the beach at Kakanui another wilderness camp. Very rushed tea so that we could go and watch the Penguins.....we were lucky enough to see a Yellow Eyed Penguin come out the sea to nest (which are very rare) then we headed to a Blue Penguin colony to see them come to shore, they were so comical, they came to shore in rafts of about 15-20 then had to make there way up the beach to there nests (it's a conservation area, so there are tunnels which they go through which counts them) there were too seals on the beach one of which was blocking the Penguins route, it's was so comical to watch them as they were scared of it but kept trying to creep past it...a couple got really close but it would turn its head and make a noise and they would all go scuttling back towards the water, in total around 120 came ashore and most eventually made it past the seal! Such a funny night