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Published: February 23rd 2010
Lake Tekapo
Bright Sunshine!We woke up to total antipodean sunshine at Lake Tekapo, and the sun shone relentlessly as we wandered round the edges of the turquoise lake, inspecting the little church and the monument to MacKenzie's dog. (ie the dog belonging to the expat Scot who was (maybe) into sheep rustling in the good old days.) Anyway, we found no adequate shade along the shores of the lake, but got magnificent views of Mount Cook (3754 m. high) across the water.
After crossing the Lindis Pass, the terrain became less parched and more friendly as we dropped down to Queenstown. We nearly ran out of Petrol, though, when we found that the only townshop for 30 km had run out of petrol, but we survived by driving slowly and switching off the air-con.
Queenstown was another world completely. A bit like Fort William but warmer and many times livelier. 'The Adventure Capital of the World' according to the promotion material. Our hotel overlooked the lake with excellent views of the mountains on the other side. Maybe our best hotel yet!
Next morning we chose the cable car and luge to enjoy. Mary won the 800 metre luge race but she
Tekapo at its best
The water was too chilly! did start before me. (She looked quite the part in her red crash helmet as well!) From the cliff top cafe we watched the bungy jumpers with amusement and without feeling the need to indulge. We also passed up the opportunity to shoot the rapids, fly over Milford Sound or sail in one of the Americas Cup yachts.
In the afternoon, we visited Arrowtown to ease the adrenalin rush but this morning as we walked round the shoreline we felt very sad about leaving all the fun behind. It was doubly frustrating, because we had hoped to visit Milford Sound (the weather was perfect for a visit) but the road there was too circuitous (50km as the plane flies but 200 km by road). So we'll have to come back to NZ another day to do it.
Now we've moved on to Dunedin. Here the countryside is very reminiscent of the south of England and the buildings are reminiscent of Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Incidentally, as we passed Lumsden on the way here we found we were 18,992 km from London. How much further away can you get?
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Joanna Taylor
non-member comment
Adrenalin Rush
This place sounds too exciting!! The photos are very impressive too!!