The first time I visited Aoraki / Mount Cook was Christmas Day 2025.
The weather was terrible.
I sat in the car, in Aoraki / Mount Cook village in the pouring rain, for hours, with my weather app open hoping for the clouds to lift. My christmas present.
They didn’t.
Though I did get some very lovely and very moody weather drama photos over the Tasman River and Lake Pukaki. Not a total loss.
Fortunately I had another chance. Or five. Or six. To see what was hiding under all of that cloud. Of course I took the main tourist route up the west side of Lake Pukaki first. It runs straight to Aoraki, with viewpoints all the way up. I stopped around each corner for another glimpse of a view I couldn’t quite believe was real.
It’s majestical.
Aoraki on the horizon, just out of reach. Glorious. Windswept. Sun kissed. One of the most photographed views in New Zealand. For obvious reasons. It’s astonishing.
But it’s also the same view for everyone. Stopping spots crammed with camper vans, cars and people standing in the middle of the road for the best angle. And I can’t say I blame them. I was one of them.
But I wanted something different, something quieter. A more personal perspective. On the eastern side of Lake Pukaki there is a road that turns to gravel just after Tekapo B power station, running up to just past the Jollie River. The views of Aoraki on the way up are just as breathtaking as from the main drag. But without the campers and the people in the road.
From the tiny car park you can walk out to the flood plain of the Tasman River. So I did. I walked out over the rocks of the dry river bed, and gawped. Alone. The only person looking straight up the river to the mountains. I sat. I listened to the birds. The water running. Felt the sun and the wind.
The view of the mountains on the east side; too vast to fit into the main road version of Aoraki.
The mountains looked different from here. The western hills I hadn’t seen from the main road opened up in front of me.
Overflowing with happiness at being able to sit alone, quietly, watching the light shift, the clouds change, the snow on the mountains glow. Just beautiful.
Then came the drive back down the gravel track with the sun dropping. Stopping by the power station because I love a pylon, and catching Aoraki contained by the structure of the pylon. The sun catching on the wires of the substation.
It should have been ugly. The ‘boring’ pylon, the functional power station. But with that back drop … nope. I cried a little bit. Well, ok, a lot.
Curiosity took me up to the Pukaki Canal, and there was Aoraki again, in the long light.
Only this time I was surrounded by anglers (human and bird). They were completely focused on the canal (and the salmon farm there). Oblivious to the ridiculous beauty glowing behind them. Mildly curious about the person, over excitedly, waving a camera at the view.
This is how I travel. I visit the big, known things first. The famous view, the tourist road. The ‘Must See’.
Then find the roads that aren’t paved or signposted, or aren’t a thing, and see what’s at the end of them. A different perspective. Sometimes nothing. Sometimes a locked gate or a no entry and some mild difficulty executing the 9 point turn to get back out.
Sometimes, most times, a beautiful experience. Just mine.