mount cook, middle earth, and more mountains

two more beautiful (if cloudy and painfully cold) days in the south island of new zealand. we saw more of middle earth, more gorgeous mountains, glaciers, lakes, wildlife - though it's not very wild here! ducks, birds, a weasely thing called a stote, and rabbits, well hares, they're giant! but no bears or antelope or deer - btw, they raise deer on farms! it's so weird to drive down the road seeing all these deer grazing fenced in like cows. on our drives and hikes, we both keep expecting to see some wild animal because it's so rugged and quiet and far from anything. although it's nice not to worry about the snakes and spiders. :)
no internet last night (which is just a killer when you live online!) but we're back to a reliable connection to the world for at least tonight. we're back at home base (the bavins) in auckland, nz but we're heading out in the morning for another trip! just 2 days this time, for white water rafting, geothermal somethingorother, and glow worm caves! (yeah, worms that glow, icky cool!)
here are the pics from yesterday. mount cook was cloud covered, but we saw many glaciers (one was even under a lake!) and had a gorgeous view from our hotel (the hermitage). we also saw more places from middle earth, and i'll have to share the details later when i look up names.