Lake Tekapo to Queenstown

At the end of each day we wrote down a few notes on where we had been that day. For day 2, we wrote "Lake Tekapo - sunrise over mountains - Lake Pukaki (stunning) - Anna buys sheep - sheep/hot chocolate - herd of sheep ..." Well the first half of the day definitely contained some sheep! Apparently Lake Pukaki "is a place of majestic scenery". We can both confirm that this is true! The mountains around the lake are phenomenal - they're high, snow covered, we had a blue sky and the lake was blue! The drive between the two lakes gave us our first experience of New Zealand roads. It was windy (by the way, I don't mean that there was a strong wind, I mean that the road went all over the place) and the views were spectacular. We were getting closer and closer to the big mountains!

I can't just keep writing that the scenery was awesome (a word Anna disapproves of), but it was! We had gone to New Zealand for two reasons 1) to see snowy mountains and 2) to find a log fire! We found plenty of both!

Our drive continued into Twizel where we stopped for hot chocolate at the "Wrinkly Rams" (and to stroke some sheep).

And then ... I had been looking forward to this for ages ... we drove into the "Lindis Pass". "The Lindis Pass climbs through rocky gorges before reaching the tussock-covered hills ...". Oh, by this time we had spotted lots of eagles or large falcons flying around, but had spotted no native mammal. It was only later that we learnt that New Zealand has no land mammals (it does have bats and some marine mammals). I don't know how to describe the pass. Our notes that we wrote down in the evening say "Lindis pass - little climb - snow" which doesn't quite give you a sense of the grandeur of the place! At one spot we decided to pull in off the side of the road and walked upwards into the snow. Wow! We found ourselves on a ridge with the most phenomenal views all around us. Then we threw snow-balls at each other. Then Anna fell down the ridge (she reckons that she was in complete control, but this is debatable).

The pass led us to Tarras where, guess what, ... Anna found a lovely little cafe with a big log fire. We didn't move for a while, drinking our tea and soup and chewing on venison sausages. I'd rather like to be at that fire now! We asked about routes into Queenstown and were recommended a road that went via Wanaka and then over the high mountains. It turned out that this route was the highest sealed route in New Zealand and gets up to 1076m above sea level. This was rather dramatic as the snow line was only a few hundred metres!

That pass, via Cardrona, involved some rather careful driving. In the evening we recorded "Cardrona Pass (amazing!) - found peak - dramatic descent into Queenstown". Again I hope that the photos give some sense of the place. Probably not - you really need to go!

We arrived in Queenstown in the afternoon. We had both been told about the wonders of Queenstown. "Situated on the northeast shore of Lake Wakaipu, backed by the Remarkables range, Queenstown enjoys one of the most scenic setting in the world." This is in contrast to Queenstown, Tasmania which Anna, Alice and I visited last year. We had been told that that Queenstown was awful. However, both Anna and I agreed that Queenstown, New Zealand wasn't as great as everyone said (whereas the Tasmanian town was wonderful!). I think that we had been spoilt by the amazing scenery around Lake Tekapo, Wanaka and in the passes. Queenstown was full of tourists. It has a McDonalds, a big aiport (watching the Qantas jets come in through the mountains was very spectacular) and a rather interesting back-packers lodge. In fact it has lots of lodges. We probably chose the worst.

I blame Anna. We had bunk beds. Anna chose the bottom one and I had the thinnest bed that I've ever seen (with no barrier to stop me falling out). We didn't have any towels . Apparently I was a bit smelly the next day. The other guests were a bit hard to chat to. They watched the TV.

We wanted to go paragliding, but they were closed. So we went to a winery and tasted some rather nice Pinot Noir wines with a bread dip. We also walked around part of the lake which really is beautiful. The full moon was now rising over the mountain range and we simply sat in a tree to enjoy the view. Then we went to a brewery and tried all the beers on tap. Anna was rather embarrassing. She ordered a pale ale and a dark ale and then needed ask which one was which. We were served by a very friendly English waitress and ate lots of lamb.

By this point Anna had already booked us onto a sky-diving trip in the morning. I wasn't feeling too happy about this. We then had an argument about where we should go next. Anna suggesting back through the mountains to Mt Cook. I argued that we should head toward the East Coast. In the end we did neither!