The Snow Patrol

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We acquired another hire car and went hunting mountain scenery and snow. The ski areas around Mount Hutt still have the white stuff in abundance, so it wasn't exactly a difficult task. We headed inland via the Rakaia Gorge towards the much photographed mecca for all Japanese tourists in New Zealand - the Church of the Good Shepherd at Lake Tekapo. In amongst the tour buses of course, the perfect photo remains elusive. Whilst the weather was still on our side, we made a beeline towards Mount Cook - alas as we made our way past Lake Pukaki the clouds came down to obscure the peak leaving our oriental friends, who'd been racing past us across McKenzie Country in their huge buses, checking their tour schedules in earnest for their next photo op.

After an overnight stop on a merino sheep farm where arguably the quadbike riding dogs were more entertaining than the lambs, we made our way over the Lindis Pass to see how far Wanaka had come in the last 4 years to becoming the new Queenstown as it is often billed. The answer to that is of course a matter of judgement, but you still can't fault the views of the lake around town.

Mount Aspiring was somewhat more co-operative than Mount Cook and graced us with a clear bright day to demonstrate it's splendour. Similarly the Cardrona Pass was pretty spectacular, although we wouldn't have wanted to be the German we met later in the backpackers who cycled up it! The Cardrona Hotel was looking picture perfect just like in the Speights ads - times like this when you don't need the car after all!

We opted to stay in the peace and quiet of Arrowtown rather than the bustle of Queenstown with it's happy hours and hordes of tourists. Queenstown seemed to be as busy as ever securing it's position as the premier adventure tourism capital of New Zealand.

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Photos

Cardrona
Cardrona Hotel

Lake Tekapo
The Church of the Good Shepherd

Mount Cook
..buried in the cloud behind Miranda

Cardrona
The top of the Cardrona Pass looking towards Queenstown