We set the alarm for 5.15am so that we could leave at first light. The rest of the group had elected to do a shorter walk up to the Red Tarns but we felt we wanted to give ourselves something a bit more stretching.  We knew it was a tough walk and we also knew we needed to be back down the mountain to coincide with the end of their walk, so as not to hold everyone up!

The forced early start gave us one of those truly magical moments. The sky was turning pink as we left, turning the glacier ahead of us a pale rose colour. As we started to walk the sky to the east was infused with a brilliant orange, the clouds shining and shimmering. It only lasted a few minutes but it was glorious and set us on our path in good spirits.

It was about a half hour walk up the valley to the base of the path up to Seeley Tarns. We were the only people about apart from one lone runner. As the path turned off it began to rise, seemingly almost up a cliff, and then it was steps, steps, steps and more steps. 

The path is reputably called a “the stairway to heaven” and involves climbing about 2,200 steps – and going up the 600m of height gain it felt like it!  However, as with so many mountain walks, the ever-evolving view kept us climbing and climbing.

We were going well – in fact so well that we almost missed the tarns. We thought it would be about 2 hours to get to the tarns (half way to the ridge) up but in fact we got there in just over an hour.  The sign was tiny and we nearly missed it by continuing on up the path to Mueller ridge. After a couple of minutes, we realised we could see the tarns and went back to the side path. There were only 2 tiny tarns but there was a lookout point with amazing views.

About 10 minutes after us, while we were eating out breakfast of bananas, the next person arrived and by the time we were going down there were a steady stream of people coming up, so it was special to have the place to ourselves for a short time.

We climbed a little higher up the path so we could look down on the tarns and take some pictures, and then it was down, down, down the stairs – killing on the knees. Half an hour back along the valley to the hotel where we even managed to scrape into the breakfast we had missed, arriving at 8 minutes to 10 with the restaurant closing at 10.  It rounded off the perfect walk.

We then rejoined the group and were taken in the minibus to the base of Mount John, at the edge of Lake Tekapo.  This vast lake starts here and goes north, with Mount John at its side.  The lake is an incredible blue colour, similar to lake Pukaki running up to  to Mount Cook. The colour is caused by glacial flour – tiny particles of rock that are rubbed away by the glacier and remain suspended in the water. This fine silt absorbs the darker blue and purples of the light spectrum while to water absorbs the longer red, orange and yellow wavelengths, leaving an amazing turquoise colour.

 The climb up the mountain was only about an hour long but we were feeling our earlier walk and took it slowly.  We went through some woods and came out onto an open area and then the wind hit us – and boy did it hit us.  The top of Mount John gives a 360 degrees view around the surrounding hills, all the way to the Mount Cook range.  It is the site of the world’s largest International Dark Sky Reserve; but all we really experienced was the very strong winds.   It was a shame that we did not return 12 hours later to see the southern skies as they are supposed to be truly astonishing.

Then back in the min-bus and the long journey to Christchurch which is still recovering after the 2009 earthquake.