Cycle: 49km
Hike: 10 miles, 1933m, 7:00

We knew we were in for a big day so were up before dawn (!) and ate our fill of porridge watching the sun rise and the school kids slowly meander into the kitchen a little less chirpy than the night before.

We were on the road early and set a good pace up to Mount Cook Village. After parking at the domain campsite we set up at about 10am for the Mueller Hut. The lady at the Lake Pukaki information site had implied that the walk was very difficult and not marked. Luckily for us she was wrong!

The walk immediately started ascending steeply. We were quickly overtaken by an impatient girl who then completely died about 500m up the path! Silly bint. The views of Mount Cook, the glaciers, the lakes and the valley floor got better and better with every twist and turn of the path. We got to the Sealy Lakes (a few large puddles) and bumped into Josua and his friend Julian who'd hooked up and spent the night at the Mueller Hut. They said it was well worth the effort to push on to Mount Olivier.

After a section of scree we hit the top of the ridge we were aiming for and were rewarded with incredible views of the Sefton and Footstool Mountains which were covered in glaciers.

The Mueller Hut (1800m) is only 4 years old and was opened by Sir Edmund Hillary. Mount Olivier is just behind and this was the first peak that Hillary climbed. We took the easier path where no ropes were required and yet again were rewarded with mind blowing views. We could see all the way back to Lake Pukaki! By now all the cloud had cleared and the weather was perfect.

After lunch at the hut we began our descent. We chatted to a Finnish guy who was in New Zealand for the fly fishing and was very excited about the forthcoming World Champs!?! Claire wiped out on the scree and cut her hand a little which wasn't good and by the time we got to the bottom of the track (6:30 later) we were a little delerious. Once again we'd taken on one hell of a day!

Rather than go straight back to the bikes we nipped to the Kea Point Lookout where there was a disappointing lack of Keas. Boo! We met a well dressed couple who politely asked us if we'd come from the Hermitage. We kindly corrected them and sent them off to the flash hotel - I don't think they'd have liked the lack of showers at the Mueller Hut!

I was pretty cooked so Claire kindly set the pace back to Glentanner. The shop and restaurant were annoyingly closed at 7pm, much to the dismay of the campsite owner. He also kindly ignored us when we told him we'd camped in the BBQ area! Oops!

We had to make do with our cous cous and stock cubes for dinner, then talked complete rubbish to two nice lads from Wokingham (and Southampton Uni). They kindly listened to us witter on!

All in all a brilliant day - certainly one of the best walks I've ever done!