Mount Cook, New Zealand - Polarsteps

Woke up and immediately began the remainder of the drive to Mt. Cook. Pulled in at "Pete's Lookout", this prompted a photoshoot in front of the sign and the beautiful mountain back drop. I really wanted to do a longer hike in Mt. Cook because it is absolutely stunning and has some great hiking tracks. Though my knee pain was a new type of painful, which was really frustrating. Still hiked, though we had to do a flat route. It ended up being so so great, you can't really go wrong here; beauty in every direction at every level. Did the Hooker Valley Track. I ran Peter through just about everything that happens in a typical day at camp. I noticed that whenever I was talking about camp I had absolutely no thoughts about my knee pain. It really got me missing Arrowhead. Peter is going to create an adult summer camp, I must have sold the camp experience real well. Ate my 99th PB&J of the trip at the end of the hike. Built two cute rock towers, an abstract art installation which represented us in rock form. Did our dishes in a small kitchen located at the start of the valley track. As I scrubbed the burnt rice out of the frying pan I caught a glimpse of two familiar faces out the window. Our good friends the Germans were able to give us one more dirty look for stealing their precious tea at Milford Lodge. On the way out, we stopped in the view point for the Tasman Galcier. This is New Zealand's largest glacier. It was quite impressive though also, again, a bit sad. I reckon the glacier isn't going to be there for many more years. Oh and we saw the Germans on the path back down.. One more for the road. As we drove out of the Mt. Cook region, the gas light turned on. This was an issue. The self-serve gas in the small Mt. Cook village did not accept our international non-pin credit cards. So we drove out of the town in search of gasoline. This was by far the closest call we had on the trip in terms of being stranded with a dead Jucy van. Thank you small town of Kinoch for saving our asses from paying a fat AA roadside fill up fee. Drove Jucy almost all the way to Christchurch, stopped outside the city for the night. We ate our final Jucy dinner while dranking a few local brews each in the back. Pete dominated in Go Fish as well as any other card game we played.. Tried to get a bit of sleep before our last day in NZ :( Highlights of today: - German mates - the beauty of Hooker Valley - judging the Asian tourists for selfie sticking and photoshooting their entire way to the end of the hike. what should have taken them 1.5 hrs was more like 3 hrs - can't even finish 3 beers each - NOT running out of gas but one more adrenaline rush of almost running out - how does one get so good at go fish I just don't get it - 10 potty breaks. not exaggerating. small bladder issues