Christchurch to Queenstown

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Christchurch to Queenstown - Sunday 3rd January

Today was to be our biggest hitching challenge yet, Christchurch to Queenstown, 300 miles. We knew we would have to set off early so after sign making help from Martin and Fen we were on the road, catching a bus to Hornby which we thought would be a good place to start and we were proved right. After 10 mins, Jodie, an Australian lady who was on holiday in New Zealand, had just picked up a rental car and needed a bit of help map reading, picked us up. She was heading about 2/3’s of the way there but was taking the scenic route so asked if we would mind if she stopped to take photos. We didn’t mind at all, especially as it would mean we would be able to see a bit more of New Zealand along the way. We drove along Scenic Highway 72 taking in some really beautiful sights including fields full of pretty pastel coloured flowers, Mount Hutt, an old rustic looking church and Lake Tekapo which even in the overcast and drizzly weather was still a bright turquoise colour.

After about 5 hours it was time to say goodbye to Jodie, we had safely navigated her to Twizel and she was now heading to Mouth Cook. She dropped us at a service station so she could use the loos and we went and waited back by the main road. Before Jodie had even returned back to her car we had been picked up by Angus, a guy in his 20’s from China but had been living in New Zealand for the last couple of years. Angus was the first (and only) person to pick us up and ask for money. Luckily he spoke to Doddy who agreed to give him a bit, I on the other hand, being the hard nosed person that I am, would have politely refused saying it was against the spirit of hitch hiking and waited for someone else! Angus took us the 50 minute journey from Twizel to Wanaka. He said he would drop us in the town centre instead of the main road as that would leave us with 45 minutes to go and that there would be loads of people going to Queenstown from there.

At 6.15pm we arrived in Wanaka, a very pretty town set around a large lake. Although it was a very pretty town we found ourselves in we did begin to wonder if the main road would have been better, albeit it was longer, it may have had more traffic going to Queenstown. 45 minutes later we were beginning to give up hope until Emma and Adam came to our rescue. They were a very friendly and chatty British couple who had set up in New Zealand a few years ago. They loved hearing all about our travelling experiences and we theirs, especially how they had planned to get married but then called it all off at the last minute to come and live out in New Zealand instead. They had however since returned home to get married! Their energy was infectious and by the end of our journey with them we had forgotten all about our long day traveling. They gave us a few hostel recommendations and dropped us off outside one of them.

We checked into the Base Backpackers, a really quite nice hostel and a massive improvement on the one in Auckland. Before bed we watched a few videos of people doing bungy jumps, getting even sweatier palms with every one watched. I was really up for it but Doddy needed another night to sleep on it before making his final decision, but we both took comfort in seeing some of the videos where people were totally hysterical before jumping, so if they could do it then so could we!

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Photos

Coming down onto Queenstown
The Remarkables Mountain range