Mt Cooke Day hike

[samvara]

Pip, Rowan and I planned a 3 day hike with maharetr and John coming for the first day. We were going to keep on after they left us and camp for the next two nights then maharetr had generously agreed to pick us up again on Monday.

We started at Sullivan Rock heading South to Mt Cooke. It was a lovely day and we hiked to the Mt Cooke campsite where we left our packs then headed up to the summit to perch on a boulder and eat lunch. The large amount of smoke drifting in from further South was worrysome and the ash that gently started falling as we ate did not inspire a feeling of safety. We abandoned our previous plan to camp and headed home.



All in all it was a great hike, we did about 16km (three of us carrying 10kg+ backpacks) and we saw a lot of birds, a lizard and a snake that slithered off the path once we made some noise.



The haze of smoke and brightly orange sun combined with the falling ash were not ideal, but were sometimes very pretty as well.

Comments

[prk]

Is that a tiger snake?

I can't quite tell, but it looks like it may have a yellow belly. Was it near water?

Prk

[samvara]

Not sure, it looked sort of reddish to me.

[cesy]

Sounds like fun, and I like the photos.

[samvara]

It was! We walked and hung out and talked and walked some more - the photos I took mostly on the way back after I got out the camera to appreciate the SMOKE and the ASH that was FALLING on us.