Mount Cook restaurants, the Hermitage and the rest of the village

Before you plan a meal, know how small the place is. DOC describes a very small alpine village inside the park, where a day shelter offers toilets and showers that take coins, beside a visitor centre, a fuel station and a short list of cafes, restaurants and bars.⁹ The nearest towns with supermarkets and full services are Twizel, 1 hour away, and Tekapo, 1.5 hours away.⁸ There is no supermarket in the village.

Finding your way is simple. Drive in on SH80 and turn right at the T intersection for the DOC visitor centre in the heart of the village.¹⁰ The Hermitage Hotel stands on Terrace Road, and the Hillary Alpine Centre opens off its lobby.¹¹ Old Mountaineers sits next door to the visitor centre.¹² Everything that matters to a day visitor lies within a short walk of these buildings. You will not need the car again until you leave.

Money works differently here. You will find no bank in the village, though EFTPOS is accepted.⁶ The fuel pump is self-service and takes credit cards only.⁷ DOC's car park at White Horse Hill takes cards and not cash.¹³ Carry a card that works abroad and a little backup, and do not count on finding cash on arrival. What is at Mount Cook Village, in short, is the essentials, done well, and every one of them comes with the mountain in view.

Old Mountaineers is the independent choice. Mackenzie tourism says it is the only business in the village officially opened by Sir Edmund Hillary, and it fills its walls with an extensive gallery of historic photographs.^25,16 It stands next door to the DOC visitor centre, which makes it easy to pair a coffee with the exhibits.¹² It works as a cafe, a bar and a restaurant, with views of the mountain from its tables.

Bringing food is the budget answer. With supermarkets an hour or more away, buy supplies in Twizel or Tekapo on the drive in.⁸ In the village, the public shelter offers a picnic area along with toilets, a shower and hot water.²⁰ Haka House, a hostel in the village, gives guests a fully equipped shared kitchen and a sauna.²⁸ Glentanner, 15 minutes down the road, runs a cafe for breakfast and lunch.^29,30

On a tour, lunch depends on the listing. Ours includes a 45-minute lunch break in the park that is optional and costs extra. The Christchurch day tour with lunch includes it, and the Tekapo shuttle asks guests to bring their own. If you are on the shuttle, a packed lunch at the picnic area beats queueing at the cafe. Take every wrapper home, because DOC asks visitors to carry rubbish out of the park.²⁶

The Sir Edmund Hillary Alpine Centre is a tribute to the climber, and it presents the region around Aoraki, the people who shaped it and its place among the stars.⁷⁵ Its custom-built theatre has 126 seats and combines 2D and 3D screens with a digital dome planetarium.¹⁹ The foyer museum covers the region's history through transport, climbing, the Hermitage Hotel and Hillary himself.¹⁸ The entrance is from the hotel lobby.¹¹

The hotel has a long story of its own. DOC explains that a local hydro scheme was built in 1925 to power the hot dinners, warm rooms and comforts of the remote mountain hotel, and that the national grid reached Mount Cook in 1961.^76,77 On the Kea Point track you can still see ground shaped in 1913, when a stream broke through to the original Hermitage site and damaged the building.⁷⁸ The hotel you see today stands on a different site.

The night is part of the village too. DOC suggests starting an evening at the planetarium in the Hermitage, then using the hotel's telescopes to look at Saturn's rings, Jupiter's moons and the Magellanic Clouds.^79,80 That needs an overnight stay rather than a day tour, and it is a strong argument for one. For the wider southern sky, the towns of the Mackenzie basin run their own stargazing evenings.

Day tours spend their free time here, and each gives the village a different amount of it. On our listing the mountain stop runs to about 2.5 hours of free time. A small-group day from Christchurch gives 2 hours. The fly-in day from Queenstown allows around 5 hours on the ground there, while the Tekapo shuttle includes 30 minutes there after its walks. Check the itinerary for this line before you book.

A good Mount Cook village tour on your own fits inside a coach stop. Start at the visitor centre, walk to the Hermitage for lunch with a view, and finish with the Glencoe Walk, which is 30 min return from behind the hotel.^27,63 If the weather is wild, swap the walk for the Hillary Alpine Centre, where the museum and the theatre stay dry.¹⁸ Finish back at the visitor centre to see whether the cloud has moved.

With more time, add Kea Point or Governors Bush. Kea Point takes 2 hr return from the village and ends on a deck facing the mountain.^50,49 Governors Bush loops 1.2 km from the public shelter and stays sheltered when the weather turns.^55,56 Whatever you choose, keep an eye on the clock; the coach leaves at the time the guide sets, and the village is too small to hide a late runner. A phone alarm set for the meeting time saves a sprint back to the bus.