Middle Earth Adventures

McCrain's in Middle Earth
A travel dialogue of our adventures in New Zealand

In February 2004, Jim and Kathy McCrain began a five month oddessy in New Zealand. Kathy was transferred to Auckland for a temporary work assignment, and Jim followed her for moral support. (Isn't he just the greatest husband?) What follows is Jim's account of this adventure.

The day of "WOW!"

July 18, 2004

Today we drove to Mt. Cook Village. This is a small resort area that has a very famous hotel, called “The Hermitage.” The views from this resort are spectacular, and cannot be adequately described in mere words. However, “breath-taking” does come to mind!

Of course, we didn’t just drive blindly to Mt. Cook Village. On the way, we passed the incredibly iridescent-blue Lake Tekapo. This lake gets its strange colour from the glacial silt that flows into it. The colour was made even more brilliant from the layer of low-lying fog that blanketed the area. Right as we reached the southern edge of the lake, we got a big break in the clouds as we approached the “Church of the Good Shepard.” This small chapel is scenically located at the end of the lake, with views of the lake and the surrounding mountains in the window behind the pulpit. What an amazing place to build a church!

Once we got to the Hermitage, we had a quick bite to eat, and then paid homage to the statue of Sir Edmund Hillary that stands on the grounds. Sir Edmund used the Mt. Cook region to train and gain the skills that he would need for his pioneering climbs in the Himalayas and his first ever ascent of Mt. Everest. Seeing his statue in front of these magnificent and majestic peaks sure did inspire me to do some more mountain climbing! But not today! Today I get to take Kathy to her very first glacier!

We walked to the foot of the Tasman Glacier, and looked out over the longest glacier in the Southern hemisphere (outside of Antarctica.) I pointed out a few of the features of a glacier to Kathy, such as the lateral, medial, and terminal moraines, and tried to explain how a glacier worked. Right in the middle of my “lecture” I stopped, and told Kathy to “Listen! You can hear the glacier move!” She didn’t really believe me until she stood very still, and sure enough, you could hear the ice crack and move. I don’t know who was more impressed, me or her!

But we couldn’t stay here for long. It was cold, and we still had a lot of things to see. Remember, this is the country where they filmed the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, so we HAD to go see some of the sights. The location of the “Pellenor Fields” was only a 45 minute drive away, so we had to go! Imagine my delight and frustration as we pulled into the area just as another HUGE fog-bank rolled in! Oh well, I can say that I saw the Pellenor Fields any way, just not the way they looked in the movie!

The Adventure Begins!