Day 4

- in Mt Cook. It's been pouring with rain since last night, so we've decided to stay put here and book into a cabin after a really rough night with zack - he fell out of his little bed twice onto our legs and I am concerned for his safety in this camper van. As a consequence we didn't get much sleep and the bed is hellishly uncomfortable with metal bars in all the wrong places. At breakfast we befriended, amongst others, an Israeli couple who're living in Brisbane for a year on sabbatical (Noam, Salit, Peleg and Euwal) - their boys played with Zack and we went thru the formalitites (Where are you from ? What do you do ? etc etc). Keith rang the campervan people and asked them if we could change our van for another with a better bed and more space. They've said they'll see what they can do. We drove up to the Mt Cook Hermitage & Visitors Centre. It's about to be re-launched with stunning new stellar viewing doo-dad. We hung out in the lounge and had a hot drink while it poured with rain. Borrowed an umbrella and walked down to the visitor's centre in the rain. Sadly we have had no views of Mt Cook since last night's sunset - it's enveloped in thick cloud and low mist. Oh, and did I mention the rain ? We took a short drive up to the Lake and glacier view-point, but when we discovered it was a 25 minute walk to the site, (in the pouring rain) we decided to give it a miss. We've seen glacier first hand before, and we'll be getting another shot at it at Fox's and Franz Josef. We drove through to Twizel for late lunch and then did a bit of re-stocking. Keith got a fitting for the gas bottle so that we can use the BBQ, but we still can't get the gas to connect to the stove in the campervan. We came back and managed to get some laundry done and hung in a brief respite from the rain. We joined Salit & Noam for a cuppa tea before rushing the laundry in and going to bed.