Advertisement
Published: June 23rd 2017
Edit Blog Post
Geo: -43.6, 170.167
Today the pick up was at 7.00 am from Rolleston Avenue which was 3 mins walk from the hostel, I had no problem getting shower early in the morning. I was picked up by Great Sights tours and we went to Armagh Street to pick up the rest of group. The bus was half empty but we picked up and dropped people on the way. We went to Ashbourne and then to Geraldine where we stopped for breakfast, I bought a subway, coffee and bottle of water.
We continued to Fairlie and then to Lake Tekopa.
Lake Tekapo
This is very picturesque lake with stunning turquoise blue colour with mountains on the side, Lake Tekapo gets its intense milky-turquoise colour from the fine rock-flour, (ground by glaciers) which is suspended in the water and we stopped here for 15 mins to take in the views. We also visited the church of the Good Shepard where many people get married; it is on a setting with lakes and mountains on the background with a nice view of Mount Cook from the window. I had advised one lady to sit on the right and she was thankful
as Lake Tekapa was on the right side of the coach, It turned out that she was from Cornwall, small world yeah.
The weather was lovely and sun was shining, the driver was good guide and told us many stories/history about the areas, the land of the Mackenzie Country, we also stopped at lake Pakaki which was lovely as well, then the weather changed and it rained hard.
Mount Cook (
Aoraki in Māori) is highest mountain in new Zealand and it towers 3,754 metres into the sky, providing a stunning backdrop to the Mount Cook National Park in the centre of the South Island. Declared a World Heritage park in 1986, it boasts over thirty 3,000 metre high peaks, which make up the Southern Alps and it also has five of New Zealand's largest glaciers, including the Tasman Glacier at 21km in length.
We reached Aoraki Mount Cook alpine lodge where I had lunch on the lounge with the views of Mount Cook which was very misty, I had tomato & garlic soup, stir fried vegetables with roll and coffee. We stopped at Twizel, Omarama, where I did a grocery shop and also around Tarras where we drove through Lindis pass which links the Mackenzie Basin with Central Otago. We also had a stop at Cromwell which is called "The Fruit Bowl of the South", I bought some peaches plums, Satsumas and I also had a home made ice cream with fresh berries which was very nice.
On approaching Queenstown, it was foggy and misty, we were behind schedule and I reached Haka lodge late. My room was nice but I had to share the bathrooms, the wifi was free but I was not able to get wifi in my room, I did not bother as I was tired and I was going to Milford Sounds tomorrow.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.145s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0434s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb