Lake Tekapo and Mt Cook (21 - 23 February 2008)
The road trip through New Zealand began in Christchurch as we set off on the SH1 towards Lake Tekapo. The scenery of the very Southern country is truly amazing. The South Island is an almost untouched land, with scattered little towns and a ‘city’ here and there. In between the towns you find a lot of open space, mostly farmland strewn with sheep and crops. The lakes and rivers are crystal clear and some of the lakes have a bright turquoise colour. As you drive from one place to the next, the scenery changes from lush green woods to barren farm lands, and from flat brown stretches of land to blue snow capped mountains. In this way, New Zealand’s landscapes reminded us of South Africa.
Lake Tekapo is a small town (or township as it is called in NZ) with an unobstructed view of a turquoise lake and snowy mountains in the backdrop. We stayed at a camp site with good facilities including a kitchen and showers that you need to pay $2 for!
We spent the afternoon walking along the shores of the lake, drinking in the magnificent view. Even though it is summer in NZ, the temperature is still a bit too cool for us to wear shorts. But that did not stop the locals (or maybe they were from the UK) to tan on the lake’s beach! At least here, tanning is possible until about 18:00, seeing that the sun only sets at 20:30.
We made some dinner - it is so nice to be able to cook our own food for a change! We saw the most amazing moonrise and then it was off to bed! We snuggled into our very small double bed (three mattresses in the back of the van) and watched the stars through the vans ‘sky-lite’ sunroof, drifting off to dreamland.
From Lake Tekapo it was on to Mount Cook - the highest peak in all of New Zealand. We arrived at the DOC site (Department Of Conservation) where we set up camp for the night. At this stage of our trip we did not yet know how many times we would stay at these basic DOC sites, they turned out to be great value for money although they have hardly any facilities (not even a shower), but at least it is very cheap.
We then set off on a short walk for about four hours to view a glacier and lake - quite a spectacular sight. We made our first meal in our van - pasta with veggies cooked on our miniature gas stove. And then it was off to bed!
But we were ripped from our dreams by a strange noise - when Eon peaked out of the window, he saw a very big parrot-looking bird pecking away at our garbage bag! The bird was so arrogant that he would just waggle away on its own time as we tried to ‘shoo’ it off. We later learnt that these birds are called kaka and they are known for their arrogant personalities and tendency to chew on anything rubbery including cat tires and hiking boots.
Next up on the itinerary was the student town of Dunedin, but it was quite a distance to cover, so we decided to stop over somewhere on the way there for camping and just do some sightseeing on the way. Just outside of Herbert is an interesting site called Elephant Rocks. These huge boulders in an open field were also Aslan’s Camp in the movie ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’. We also had a peak at an ages old whale fossil, just outside of a town called Duntroon.
We camped in a small town named Herbert. For dinner we had the cheapest sausages we could find in the shop, the label said it contained pork, chicken, beef and lamb?. After dinner Eon joined a New Zealand family who was camping for the weekend in a cricket game. And that was it for the day.
Click on image to view Lake Tekapo, Mt Cook and Elephant Rocks gallery: