Peter set out to do some solo photography this morning, he wanted to take advantage of the cloudy morning weather. Which made for a restful morning for me – the highlight being a FaceTime call with Julie who’s in Hawaii right now so in the same time zone. So weird to be talking to each other from halfway around the world.  They were clearly having better weather there since Julie’s iPad overheated in the sun and cut our connection!

Peter arrived home just before lunchtime along with the sun and emerging views of the mountains (not to mention seriously increasing temperatures.)  So we set out on the Hookers Tramp again and this time made it to Hooker Glacier/Lake.  It was a completely different experience with views all round as opposed to that very low cloud cover of yesterday and we were both glad we repeated it.

Funny anecdote about Sue and Peter hiking together.  We’re walking along, Peter behind me on the trail.  Suddenly he lets out a very surprised yelp and I stop abruptly to see what’s up.  I am imagining a dead body (human) just off the trail, or two people having either a big fight or making love, or someone floating down the river…something radical along those lines.  Imagine the denouement when it turns out the yelp was for a mushroom that he found beside the trail which really made his day. (I do believe there are only 2 people in our lives who would have been just as thrilled as Peter – my Dad and friend Thom. He was probably wishing he was hiking with them right then!)

  The sky clearing along the way to Hooker Glacier.

 Hooker Lake with the glacier in the background but it’s so covered with black dirt you can’t really see it – just a few spots at the edge of the lake where it calved recently and the ice has not yet been covered with dirt.  Best of all, Mount Cook came out for a brief visit (top of photo) before disappearing again behind the clouds.