The next day I took to my 3rd big hike in the Mt. Cook area, this time to the Sealy Tarns. This would be the other ‘difficult’ hike of the 4, and constituted another endless stair climb. But when climbing the stairs, it means you are getting higher…and better views await those at altitude.

I opted for a slightly later morning start than the previous day (9am instead of 7am), and the weather was turning out to be even BETTER than the previous day.

First was a stop at Kea Point, a fairly flat walk to a look out over Mueller Lake and towards Mt. Cook.

A wonderful, sunny day. Then starting the Sealy Tarns track, you gain elevation quickly once again.

After about 1.5 hours of hiking up tiring stairs, I had reached the Sealy Tarns!

The day was so calm and clear you could get a great reflection in the Tarns.

And of course, overall, fantastic views. You could really see the two mixing colours of the Mueller Lake below.

Down the valley where I had driven just 2 days prior. The smaller mountain on the right of the picture was where the Red Tarns are found.

Being much higher up, I could get a much better idea of Mt. Cook’s peak. Lots of snow.

Some of the snow on the other nearby peaks. Quite often you would hear small rockfalls, glacier movement, snow packing, etc from the nearby mountains.

A shot straight down to Mt. Cook, with the Hooker Glacier and Lake below it, which then runs into the Mueller Lake at the bottom of the picture.

One more panorama.

And on the hike back down, one more look at Mt. Cook.

That was it for my difficult hikes around the Mt. Cook area (and both Tarns were good and sweat inducing!), but I still had one more hike to go before leaving the region – to the Tasman Glacier Lake.