Overview
About Old Mountaineers’ Café
Why stop
- Aoraki / Mount Cook views through the large dining-room window.
- Historic mountain photographs give the café a strong mountaineering character.
Heads up
- Food quality and service reports are mixed.
Map
Where it is
Loading the Aoraki / Mount Cook map
Full mapPlan your stop
Before you go
2 active Aoraki / Mount Cook alerts
- CautionBall Hut Track: impassable gorge at Husky FlatThe Ball Hut Track is severely affected at Husky Flat; beyond the gorge there is no marked route. - A severe weather event significantly damaged the track and created a large, impassable gorge.Official details
- CautionHooker Valley Track: 20-person bridge limitNo more than 20 people may be on the first Hooker Valley Track suspension bridge at one time. DOC is enforcing the limit because cable wear has been identified on the 47-year-old structure.Official details
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Aoraki / Mount Cook Tour Guide
Your drive to Old Mountaineers’ Café, narrated.
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
Recorded for this place
Visitor Centre and Old Mountaineers’ Café0:00 / 0:31
“You're coming up on the visitor centre, a free museum as well as a place to ask about walks. Allow about an hour if you enjoy the exhibits.”
Plays as you drive up to Old Mountaineers’ Café in the Parkwolf Aoraki / Mount Cook Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
- The Hermitage and Hillary’s Alpine Centre
- Village Petrol Pumps and Bowen Bush Walk
- Red Tarns from Bowen Drive
- Chamois Bar & Grill at Mt Cook Lodge
- 24 audio storiesacross Aoraki / Mount Cook’s roads, triggered by GPS as you drive
- Wildlife heatmapsfor Kea, Rockwren, New Zealand Falcon, and 13 more
- Works offlinemaps, 15 trails, 30 places, and audio download before you lose signal
- CarPlay readysimple controls built for the drive
“Fantastic app with many points of information… It’s great to just turn on while you’re driving and it gives you an audio tour of the national Park. We love it!!!!”
Guide
More about Old Mountaineers’ Café
A café with Aoraki in the windowThe Old Mountaineers’ Café is a village café, bar and restaurant beside the DOC visitor centre.
The Old Mountaineers’ Café is a village café, bar and restaurant beside the DOC visitor centre. Its tall, peaked dining-room window looks toward Aoraki / Mount Cook, and historic mountain and mountaineering photographs make the room a small gallery. It is an easy sit-down break in the village before or after a day on the tracks.
A substantial café menuThe menu lists mountain-named burgers, pizzas, nachos, fish and chips, coffee, muffins and…
The menu lists mountain-named burgers, pizzas, nachos, fish and chips, coffee, muffins and chocolate cake, plus beer and wine. The café says the burger buns and pizza bases come from Fairlie Bakehouse. Order at the counter; there is no table service. Visitors are split on food quality and service, so the setting and mountain history are safer reasons to stop than any particular dish.
A piece of mountaineering historyThe café opened on 7 January 2003.
The café opened on 7 January 2003. Sir Edmund Hillary officially opened it, and Mackenzie tourism identifies it as the only business in the village with that distinction. Historic mountain photographs make that connection part of the visit.
Wildlife
Wildlife in Aoraki /
139 sightingsKeaMost seen around 9 AMSighting map
74 sightingsRockwrenMost seen around 10 AMSighting map
46 sightingsNew Zealand FalconMost seen around 10 AMSighting map
15 sightingsKererūMost seen around 9 AMSighting map
16 sightingsBellbirdMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
33 sightingsBlack-fronted TernMost seen around 5 PMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Aoraki / Mount Cook. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
