Mt. Cookie Monster: New Zealand's biggest hoax

It just doesn’t exist. I went there and I didn’t see it. The tourist industry just invented the whole story about a cookie monster living on Mt. Cook, which I also didn’t see, to lure naïve people to the valley, get them disappointed, and make them happy again with an all-in stay at the Hermitage hotel after the oh so tiring 8km stroll to a lookout point at a glacial lake from where you couldn’t see a thing, because they covered the bloody mountain with their cloud machine and this mythical mountain monster lives on the fucking top. Add some strong gales, more hurricane like, and granny and grumpy are all to willingly to just not take the walk and stay at the hotel to enjoy a buffet. At least I could see that, I could smell it, I was so close, I was inside, but trying to go up in the pensionclub seemed impossible. A can of pumpkin soup wasn’t that bad at all. So you see, I’m not that lucky here at all. There are three really big lakes here: Lake Ohau, near Twizel and just adjacent to the Fields of Pelennor, Lake Pukaki at Mt. Cook, and Lake Tekapo, which all form the picture perfect combination with the mountains in the background. But not last week. Once you got closer to the lakes and mountains from the main road, you would almost got blown away, like a storm at sea. While it was fine weather in the valley, all the clouds were sticking to the mountains, and it can take ages before they get over it. So after a ‘windy’ sleepness night – total silence interrupted by unexpected windblasts that pulled a couple of pegs – at Mount Cook Village, I wasn’t really keen to go up the ridge to the Mueller hut. There was nothing to see anyway with all those clouds, and I was planning just to leave. But after checking out the Tasman Glacier Lake, the only lake in the world or so with icebergs in it, me and Anna, a German woman, again, just decided to go up and have a look. And we were quite lucky because we didn’t see rain whole day while it looked pretty bad around us, and although we didn’t see the New Zealand’s highest mountain, we were rewarded with some nice vistas of the valley and a cool hike. No all-you-can-eat to finish the day, so I moved on to Lake Tekapo next day. No view on Mt.Cook from this side either, but only hordes of Japanese picture hunting madness. Moveuh! The only option was to wait for the weather turning better. And luckily the sky cleared and I could do a long day hike again, at Mount Somers, situated in the Mid Canterbury region. With 27km around the mountain, it looked doable. If I could do the Routeburn in one day, then this would be fine. But it would be the longest day ever on the entire trip. This was not a Great Walk, and an exhausting 6km killer part halfway almost got me down. Here you just had to hike up a ladder like trail, over slippery muddy tree roots, to discover you went down again, and up and down. In other words: STOEMPEUH! Although it was getting easier after that, I was just destroyed, going into the red zone where it comes to survival. You just have to continue then. So after 9hours hiking, I have never been so happy to see the car back again. Next day restday. Continuing on the same road to have a look at Mount Sunday, near Mount Potts station. Well this is your fucking iconic hill. In the middle of the plain, encircled by mountains and the Rangitata river, this roche mouton rises up. It’s called Mt. Sunday, because in the past the sheepherders would meet here at Sunday. More importantly, this place was used to built Edoras, the capital of Rohan. This is just the most recognizable location from the movies, really impressive, but also very small at the top, so I didn’t know how they put all the sets on top. It’s a cool feeling anyway, with nice views this time: mountains with snow. How about that!