Our Saturday began at about 4 a.m., when a siren went off outside. Luckily, we knew it was the siren to summon the local fire department volunteers, not something we needed to react to. Even luckier, I woke up enough to look out the transom window and see that the sky had cleared up and we could see stars! You see, we are in the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve, where there is very little light pollution. Stargazing is some of the best in the world here . . . when the weather cooperates. We were afraid we would miss out because of the clouds, but that siren gave us the chance to go outside and see the absolutely amazing night sky. The Milky Way was clearly visible and there were more stars than we’ve ever seen–way more than even Uluru.

Later in the morning, Rich took the four hour Hooker Valley hike, which starts a short distance from our hotel. He got there early enough to avoid the crowds, which had started to build by the time he returned. He said it was really beautiful and, unlike in Australia, he didn’t have to watch out for snakes. That said, the hike did have its own warnings:

The views were worth the dangers, though:

After Rich’s hike, we went to the very nice Aoraki Visitor’s Center.

I love the fact that the first women to climb the mountain did it wearing skirts!

We also toured the small but interesting Sir Edmund Hillary Centre in the historic Hermitage Hotel. Hillary, who is from New Zealand, is known as the first person to reach the summit of Mt. Everest, but he was also the first person to summit Aoraki (then known as Mt. Cook) from the south face. Hillary learned to ice climb on Mt. Cook and is considered a Kiwi national hero. We watched a documentary about him that had a lot of interviews with him. It made it clear that he was exactly the right kind of arrogant to accomplish the feats he accomplished (in addition to Everest and Mt. Cook, he was also the first person to reach the South Pole in a motor vehicle). After his climbing career, he used his celebrity to raise money and he personally spent a lot of time doing philanthropic projects in Nepal.

We had a quick dinner at the Old Mountaineer’s Cafe and are currently being treated to a beautiful sunset behind the mountain outside of our window. What a lovely day.