Dunedin - Lake Tekapo

---

Wednesday 10th November

We leave Queenstown early in the morning and we are feeling pretty good due to having two nights in a private room where we could unpack our bags fully and do some laundry.
We are headed on a short journey to Dunedin located in the South East of South Island. We drive through the lovely Otago region on our way down to Dunedin and its bright and sunny and the rivers and lakes are crystal clear. The Waitaki and Clutha rivers provide much of the country's hydroelectric power and we see a few dams on the road through Otago which is the second largest province in New Zealand.

Dunedin (pop 120,000) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the principal city of the Otago Region. The Lay Association of the Free Church of Scotland founded Dunedin at the head of Otago Harbour in 1848 as the principal town of its special settlement. The name comes from Dùn Èideann, the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh.

We checked into out old Victorian style YHA hostel and headed into town for a wander. The street names here are very familiar as most of them are named after Scottish Towns or street names. For example we are staying on Moray street, around the corner is Princess street. Splintering off here you can see names such as Lothian road, Elgin avenue, Bathgate place, Corstorphine road, Stuart Street....I could go on forever. So really its home away from home to us as theres a lot of architecture similar to back home in regards the churches and street layouts.
We head for the Octagon is an eight sided plaza bisected by the city's main street, which is called George Street to the northeast and Princes Street to the southwest. The octagonal road is named Moray Place!! These form the axis of Dunedin's central business district. We stopped for lunch here and took it all in as it's bustling with all walks of life and every 15 minutes the local church in the distance chimes a recognisable chime.

Across the road from where we are sitting we could see the statue of Robbie Burns so we hauled over the road for a wee look at the man himself. He is badly needing a clean as pigeons don’t seem to like his poems much and have crapped all over him, what you saying about wee beastie’s now Robbie?
The Reverend Thomas Burns, a nephew of the poet Robert Burns, was the spiritual guide who was one of the founders of dunedin here in the mid 1800's hence the reason the statues is here.

The Dunedin Town Hall and St. Paul's Cathedral behind the statue here are really nice and we walk past and back into town for a browse around the shops before heading home past the Cadbury's chocolate factory. Its got three large silos out the front, two white and one purple and we fantasise of swimming in chocolate as we walk by. They do chocolate tours around the factory but we didn't have time today which is maybe just as well going by our history of chocolate binges.

We the come across a wonderful looking building. Possibly the best-known building in the southern half of New Zealand's South Island, Dunedin Railway Station is a jewel in the country's architectural crown. A few photo's here and we're off and heading homebound.

Its a pretty uneventful night as we watch tv eating muffins and drinking tea. We go to bed to separate rooms as Jill’s staying in an all girl dorm whereas I’m sharing with three very old American cyclists who bugged the hell out of me all night with their snoring. Just to put the icing on the cake they are up and about 6am putting on their bicycle clips on or something!!!

Thursday 11th November

We get picked up by Disco on the Magic bus and are taken to the steepest road in the world. Baldwin Street in Dunedin is considered the steepest street in the world. At its maximum, the slope of Baldwin Street is approximately 1:2.86 (19° or 35%!)(MISSING) – that is, for every 2.86 metres travelled horizontally, the elevation rises by 1 metre.
We climbed halfway up and took silly photos of us standing upright on the flat to create the illusion as shown on the photo. At the top we take a breather as its a leg burner getting to the top, god help the residents here in the winter not to mention the Postman!!

We are on the move again and heading out of Dunedin and heading for Lake Tekapo via some lovely shots of Dunedin and coastlines.
We have one stop on route to Lake Tekapo and thats the famous Moeraki Boulders.
The Moeraki Boulders are unusually large and spherical boulders lying along a stretch of Koekohe Beach on the wave cut Otago coast. Moeraki Boulders are concretions created by the cementation of mudstone of the Moeraki Formation, from which they have been exhumed by coastal erosion. Moeraki Boulders are concretions that were created by the precipitation of calcite from pore waters within the Moeraki Formation. The spherical shape of these concretions indicates that the source of calcium was mass diffusion and not fluid flow.

We explored these stones and couldn't really understand the way they were formed until we read up the information in the Tourist information office nearby. It was pretty cool seeing them and as the photos show they are something of a wonder. We had lunch here and then headed onwards towards Mount Cook and Lake Tekapo.

Just a few miles before Lake Tekapo we stop at a view point in which to admire Mount Cook sitting proudly to the North nestled in the Southern Alps. The weather is bright and sunny and we get a good view of most of the surrounding mountains which all looked amazing.

I have booked myself into the Grand Traverse Scenic tour over the The Aoraki Mount Cook National Park mountains which involves flying in a little six seater plane around Mount Cook, Mount Tasman, Fox glacier and the Franz Josef Glaciers.

The bus drops me off with two other people from the Magic bus and we check into the little airstrip in the middle of nowhere. Our Captain, who’s name is Tom, introduces himself and explains exactly where we're going and what we expect to see. Within minutes we are jumping aboard the little plane and are now sitting on the end of the airstrip. I’ve somehow manage to end up sitting in the front seat up front with the pilot with flying paddle in front of me and steering peddles under my feet, i,m feeling a bit dodgy now. I do ask Tom ‘if he has any heart problems as if he pops his clogs i would have to fly this baby home!’ He just laughs and says he’s fine.

We get our headsets on and buckle up our 4 point seatbelts and brace ourselves. Our single prop lightplane, with about a 16 ft wingspan stutters into life and Tom pulls out the choke out and says ‘we’ll just give her a little minute to warm up’! This is going to be a hairy 60 minutes i feel!

We get clearance from the base to proceed and we do a quick check of buttons and lights and then he pushes the levers down and we start to accelerate. I can only describe this as like being sitting in a noisy car as we take a wee while to get going and as the runway runs outs I hardly notice the fact that we have left the ground and climbing, climbing fast!
The plane then left the low altitude warm pressure behind and buffeted and shook through the cold pressure higher up and it got your heart going to say the least. ‘perfectly normal’ says Tom. My request for the drinks trolley receives a few chuckles.

We do a turn as we are flying upwards and its an amazing feeling as the plane is so small you sense that its sensitive to the pilots controls as he easily moves us from a steep turning angle to flat straight within a matter of seconds. Yes my belly is in knots but the views already have preoccupied my thoughts. Travelling at 100 knots and a height of between 2500 and 3000 Metres we pass over the Tekapo Lake and gaze in wonder at the blueness of the water. We fly over the braided river systems of the Mackenzie basin which is equally amazing.

The reason its so blue and colourful is due to the fact that the water is from the melted Glaciers have collected volcanic minerals on the way down the hills into the lake to create the colours of the lake. We are starting to notice that the hills are getting whiter by the second and as we fly over the lake, we then fly through between two large mountains and up a valley.

By now we can plainly see the effects of water erosion and glacial activity through the years as water cut gorges, flat plateaus and hanging valleys are all below and around us. We are flying broadside with some high Mountains now and its very white and snowy getting and we see a small glacier below us and also signs of previous large avalanches.
Toms giving us a running spiel on the various names of mountains but to be honest i can hardly hear what he’s saying as the propeller from the plane is only two metres from my face!

We have covered some 30 miles already and have passed over snow fields and high peak of mountains and have now arrived over the top of the Franz Josef Glacier. We swoop down a little lower and take a closer look. Its really great to see the Franz Josef from a different perspective as I can clearly see the accumulation zone feeding the glacier and get a better idea of the size of the thing. Just a few more kilometres to the south east we fly over the Fox Glacier which is equally impressive and it looks a bigger glacier but only in width rather than length. The clouds are covering over this area quite thickly and Tom steers us away to the east to carry on in safer air.
It's a total whiteout now and I saw some crazy mountain climbers down on a high ridge who had pitched their tent there two nights ago according to Tom. They must be around 2000 metres up the mountain side there as as we fly around the peak we arrive at the highest peak in New Zealand, Mount Cook!

Unexpectedly, Tom flys us around the peak twice in different directions so that people from either side of the plane can get good shots of the magnificent Peaks. Not much is said as we all stare in amazement at the beauty of it. Toms a great pilot you can tell as he’s kept us at a few hundred feet from the mountain top whilst talking away and explaining various stuff such as the heights and specs of the mountain.
Mount Cook lost 10 metres off its height last year due to a rock fall. Being in a earthquake zone this is not uncommon in this mountain range.

We then fly off and to our next destination which is the Equally if not more spectacular Mount Tasman Peaks which are lovely as the sun is hitting the peak and we can see every detail of the rocks and snow hugging it. We fly around and as we return to do a second fly by which time the clouds have enveloped the mountain and gave us a rare view which i could not put into words so ill let the photos speak for themselves.

We now stary our return journey back to Lake Tekapo taking a different route back through the mountains and gradually the snow resides and we are almost back to bare rocks and its quite pretty to see the reds and purples of Volcanic minerals poking through the moraine and scree on the hillsides.

Our last Valley that we flew down boasted some great looking waterfalls and as we were admiring the view Tom put the plane into a mini dive and then flattened the plane with a cheeky wee smile on his face. Wait till i get my stomach out of my mouth!! We are now flying over Lake Tekapo and heading for base and we can just about see the runway as its now raining and theres now windscreen wipers!! The rain stopped and it cleared up as we approached the runway. We were being buffeted about, but not too much, until we hit the runway with a rubber tire screech, brake, turned, braked and stopped. Wow!! Beats British airways any day!!

We all jump off with large smiles on our faces. What an epic journey. I say bye to Tom and shake his hand saying ‘thanks’! It turns out that Tom is to drive us in the shuttle bus to our hostels and its funny to be sitting in the front again in very different circumstances.

Lake Tekapo Yha is situated right on the lake front and the views are stunning to say the least. Disco has a BBQ laid on for the passengers and we have to walk 10 minutes down the road to his hostel to help with the preperations. I told Jill I would not mention being a chef to anyone as no way i was doing a BBQ for 30 people. Well lo and behold we arrive and there is pandemonium in the kitchen so i stepped in and sorted things out. The BBq stove itself was far to small for th large pile of raw meats they had piled up beside it so i gave out orders to cook stuff in the oven while instructing someone else to fry off a large pan of Onions and mushrooms. Oh lovely, ive got the veggie brigade asking for vegetable options. I was so tempted to do a Frankie Boyle and say ‘veggie option? f.o!’.

Someone else got the order to cut and spread the buns and grate the cheese whereas the folk standing about picking their noses were told to leave the kitchen as it was borderline for safety reasons. Any way things are soon in order and we feast out on bbq burgers and chicken and the veggie heads are content with their mashed tatties and veggie sausages. Disco give me a pat on the back and says 33 is the most he’s ever done for a bbq...ahem...somethings not right with that comment me thinks. Thankfully the nose pickers have all chipped in and help to clear the mess away, clean the bbq and do the dishes. As i always say, there’s no I in team. 😊

A game of Frisbee starts up on the shores of the lake and its a good laugh as for some its challenging just to actually see the frisbee in the fading light. I’m shattered so I head off home for an early night. Jill has a star gazing trip at 9pm at a local observatory which turned out to be cancelled at the last minute due to clouds. I walk back to my room along the lakefront path which is very calm and picturesque and i gaze up to the Southern Alps thinking of my flight earlier on.
Tomorrow we are heading for Christchruch for a three day stop so we are looking forward to having a relaxing few days doing very little, hopefully!

---

Comments

[Fred]

How does your adventure compare to similar U:K: travel I wonder?
Our N.Z. family has strong connections wth Dunedin, Jean the Mum was from the city so we have heard some interesting tales from her childhood, and now that she has returned there after 40 years in Europe she claims that colour t.v. is about the biggest change to take place!! I must say that it all appears to be very well organized and pleased to note no reports of any major dsasters, the 'plane trip really grabbed me. Two fellow small hoteliers from Dulnain Bridge by Grantown were from N.Z. Now they restrict it to summer opening and only B&B, the remainder of the Scottish winter months they spend back in NZ where they bought a cute cottage, as expected they are looking forward the NZ summer, they are North Island, suddenly we are up to our necks in the intipodes. Pleased it is stilll going so well. My birthday today 26th. Fred