Cook and Cousins!

I got up this morning and headed to my last trip in Mount Aspiring National Park which was Roaring Billy Falls. The path was easy to follow but I took a small detour to walk along the river bed over all of the nicely round stones on the way to the falls. Not even 15 min into my walk it started to rain. GO FIGURE! The last stop before I hop on the road for a few hours and it rains now??? Couldn’t have given me 10 min huh. I saw the falls definitely from a far which is a bummer because you can get close to them if you don’t mind getting wet. If I had my rain jacket on and the rain jacket for my camera (which were both in the car) I would of stayed to get more pictures but I wasn’t having any of it. Yes yes, poor attitude but oh well, just another waterfall right? ;)

Roaring Billy Falls

Roaring Billy Falls 2

So now I start my way back down south and headed for Mount Cook. I could have continued north and passed by the glaciers but I really wanted to see Mt. Cook and Lake Tepako so I needed to go south in order to check them out. On my way, I passed another lavender farm, and I stopped for some more pictures. These were a little better than the ones a few days ago, because the mountains in the background were pretty and they had some chairs you could chill out on, in the fields themselves. After about 30 pictures or so (I kid you not, I better find a guy who can deal with my picture taking lol) I headed off again to Mount Cook. It took me a good 4 hours or so of driving to get to my destination, or what I thought would be my destination. Before I left my job back home, a relative of mine told me that I had a cousin who was going to be moving to NZ for a year for work and that we should meet up. I know this side of the family but never grew up with them so none of us are close by any means. I got in touch with my cousin Kara and she told me of a place that I could stay near her.

I was excited, a place to stay where I can see Mt Cook and I get to meet a cousin, sweet! I wouldn’t recommend the place I stayed to anyone for a few reasons.

1. If you are sharing room, the bunk beds are metal and squeak like crazy!

2. They don’t offer any towels so you better have your own

3. A little too much to spend for a bed and a shower. I have had better accommodations in camping parks with showers lol.

Anyhoo, after I showered and got my stuff together Kara met me down in the lobby and she showed me around the area a bit telling me about Edmund Hillary and where I could find more information about him tomorrow. She also gave me some information on some walks that I could do in the area tomorrow. We finished off our night in a bar in the hotel I was staying at and we chatted about family and who was who and what not. I would love to get to know that side of them family even if we are 2nd or 3rd cousins, I love family so the more the merrier. I was turning into a pumpkin and said goodnight to Kara, but we agreed if we were in the same area in the North Island we had to meet up.