We walked to the Mueller Hut today. An elevation gain of about 1100m, bringing us up to 1816m. It was steep. The first part to sealy tarns had 2200 steps, plenty of which were twice the height of regular steps, giving Nicole ( 5ft 3) a nice single leg squat workout on a very regular basis! After the sealy tarns it was a steep, pole-marked path to the top then a 15 min scramble to the hut. There must have been a couple of hundred people out on the hill. Some only going to Sealy tarns, some returning from a night spent at the hut, others like us, doing the trip up and down in the day. We got to the hut in about two and a half hours, had lunch and made our way back down, stopping for some photos and to give 'encouragement' to those on the way up. Cathal may have been not as encouraging as he could have been at times! Throughout the day we heard peals of thunder, which actually turned out to be avalanches and ice falling off the sides of the mountain. Scrambling across the top, we saw some of these on the opposite mountain. The rain held off all day but the clouds never lifted off the top of Mt. Cook and the rain started coming down heavily tonight.

We got chatting to a Canadian couple, Peter and Jan, while cooking dinner at the lodge this evening. She's a big Guinness fan and was drinking cans of it in the lounge. A beer with dinner has resulted in what's going to be another very early night.

We're leaving here tomorrow to head to Oamaru. Cheerio for now.