Our Travel Stories

We both woke up fairly early, had a quick breakfast, packed sandwiches for lunch and left hotel to reach park by 8.30am. The plan was to start our first big hike early to avoid afternoon sun. Really glad we did that as the day got very hot later.

Paid NZ$ 25 for parking and only realized later that a 5 minute walk would have gotten us free parking 🤫.

We hiked the Sealy Trans hike which is a difficult hike because of the uneven 2200 steps, and 1800 ft ascend in the short span of 1.5 miles. It is called the “staircase to heaven”. We were slow as we climbed, but the views of the Mount Cook kept us going as the valley kept dropping away from us.

After 2/3 of the way, I (Mayuresh) needed to return to answer nature’s call. Shraddha though completed the hike.

Once Mayuresh left, I (Shraddha) was on my own for rest of the hike. This is a very popular hike and I spent as much time hiking as stopping for other hikers. The steps seem to go on forever, especially when coming down.

I am glad I did the hike though as the view from the top was awesome. It was super windy too. One of the hikers lost his backpack as it flew away 🤫

After this hike, Mayuresh joined me for a short hike to Kea Point. This hike takes you to the small glacier fed lake that is seen from the Sealy Trans hike. Wind was brutal here as well.

On the way back, we visited Lavender Farm. They had a small soft serve ice cream shop where all flavors had lavender in them. We tried the mango lavender, and vanilla lavender with honeycomb. The mango lavender had milder lavender flavor, but both were very good and refreshing after the hikes. The farm was pretty.

In the evening, we had good thai food. Later in the night we plan to go out for star gazing. With clear and pollution less skies, this area is known for star gazing. At the same time, the clear skies also make the sun rays hotter and sunscreen application becomes a must.