Ready, set...

Less than 2 days to go! All booked and organised - our flights, our car, our accommodation at Lake Tepako, our one week at Wanaka, and our final night in Queenstown!

Really looking forward to catching up with my Facebook friend, Christine. We'll spend our first night in New Zealand at her home in Christchurch. Such hospitality towards someone she's never met!

And now that we're back......


Since arriving home, I've looked for a map which shows where we went, but I haven't been very successful.  This map, from Lonely Planet, is probably the closest, although it doesn't show all the places we visited on our trip to New Zealand's South Island.

We visited: Christchurch, Lake Tekapo, Twizel,  Wanaka (where we stayed for a week), Arrowtown, Cromwell and Queenstown. And, of course, our travels included driving through some smaller towns.

Christchurch

Well, arrived in Christchurch, and were met by Christine and Katrina. Christine, Katrina and Noel had kindly offered their hospitality for that night - we had discovered when booking that there were no vacancies in B & Bs and motels! All accomodation was taken by those who had lost their homes in the earthquakes, or by those involved in the reconstruction.

After a delightful meal at Sequoia 88, Christine took us for a drive round Christchurch.  We were saddened to see the destruction wrought by the earthquakes on this beautiful city. On a more positive note, we also saw the huge amount of reconstruction taking place. 

We last visited Christchurch 30-odd years ago, so the contrast was sad indeed.

Christchurch is the oldest city in New Zealand. We are happy to have memories of what it was and what it will undoubtedly return to. This montage from Wikipedia is a great reminder:

Lake Tekapo

After collecting our hire car at Christchurch, we headed off to Lake Tekapo.

The Nissan Sunny sure brings back some memories (although I knew it is the Datsun Sunny.) It's very popular as a hire car in New Zealand.

Our first stop was the town of Rakia, known as the salmon capital of New Zealand, and distinguised by its landmark statue of a salmon. (In Australia we'd probably just call it The Big Fish)

The scenery was beautiful, and we took plenty of photos of the locals.

We were travelling through Hydro country. The scheme in this part of New Zealand is the Waitaki Hydroelectric Scheme. The Waitaki River is fed by three glacial lakes, the Pukaki, the Ohau and Lake Tekapo. The glacial nature of these lakes gives them the distinctive sapphire colour.

Lake Pukaki (from Wikipedia)

We arrived in Lake Tekapo in time to settle into our accommodation, go for a walk around the lake and have a great meal. More about our culinary adventures in the Eating section of this blog!

The famous Church of the Good Shepherd (and moi.)

from the balcony of our Lake Tekapo accommodation

Before we left next morning, we enjoyed a marvellous trip to the Mount John Observatory, New Zealand's premier astronomical research observatory. It's operated by the University of Canterbury, with some collaboration and funding from Japan's Nagoya Univerity, and contains 5 large telescopes.

We co-opted a young Austrian tourist for this one!

On to Wanaka

Again, gorgeous scenery was the order of the day. A sight I didn't expect to see was the wide expanses of Lupins. True, they are classified as an invasive species, but what a spectacular sight!

Another surprising (to me, anyway!) sight - lots of giant irrigation sprinklers, up to 1 km in length.

Wanaka is a beautiful town - snow-capped mountains and a picturesque lake wherever you look.

From our base in Wanaka, we made many day trips.  Cardrona is only a 15 minute drive from Wanaka, and its main claim to fame is the Cardrona Hotel, with the vintage car out the front.

The beer garden is lovely - lots of cottage garden-type plants. And the local drop - Cardrona Gold - goes down very well!

Just outside of Wanaka is the fascinating National Transport & Toy Museum, where we spent a few hours looking at a huge range of toys - clockwork toys, Meccano and Lego, teddy bears, dolls (including a vast array of Barbies) as well as cars, engines, trucks, aeroplanes...

Barbies, anyone?

More Wanaka

Our next trip was across the Crown Range road, the highest main road in New Zealand. It can be tricky in winter (and is sometimes closed due to ice and snow) but no problems in summer. The views are spectacular. My photos can't do it justice, so I've taken these from dangerousroads.org.

We took this road to Arrowtown, a former gold-mining town built on the banks of the Arrow River. Lots of shopping, some great eating places and a great place for sitting in the sun!

The Arrow River

View down the main street

New Zealand has many wineries, and the Otago area is well-endowed. The Rippon Vineyard is only a short walk away from Wanaka on the Glendhu Bay Walking track  - or so I thought! That "short walk" includes a steep climb, no doubt to make one appreciate a drink when the destination is finally reached!

The scenery is truly magnificent, and, as befits the setting, the wine is delicious, especially the Jeunesse Pinot Noir, 2009. And although we both tend towards the reds, we found the Sauvignon Blanc, 2010 hard to beat!

We were lucky enough to meet up with a delightful group of fellow Aussies at the Wyndham resort where we were staying, and joined forces for a delightful barbecue one evening.

Another former gold-mining town is Cromwell, a short drive from Wanaka on the banks of Lake Dunstan (yes, another lake!) We spent some time exploring the old mining centre - exhibits, displays, tearooms, crafts.

On our way back to Wanaka, we were lucky enough to see some skydivers, giving tourists a bird's-eye view of the area.

Queenstown

We spent our last night in New Zealand in Queenstown, on the shores of beautiful Lake Wakatipu. It's a marvellous place to just wander. We loved the market on the lake.

Naturally, there was coffee! I couldn't resist this poster on the wall of a coffee shop.

Tourism is one of Queenstown's major industries. In Summer, that means the lake and the scenery.

The TSS  (twin screw steamer) Earnshaw is a vintage steamer offering cruises on Lake Wakatipu. We didn't have time for a cruise, but spent some time watching the steamer take on coal for its next cruise.

The Queenstown recreation reserve was a good spot to settle down for lunch after a long drive.

Ballarat St,  leads up to the Queenstown Hill. Here are a couple of views in each direction.

I couldn't leave Queenstown without a picture of the surrounding mountain ranges. The Remarkables are truly - well - remarkable.

 My photo was taken at dusk. I turned to Tripadvisor for a daylight photo.

And that was our holiday.  All too brief, as holidays are. But I managed one more photo from the plane.

Eating!!

We had lots of yummy food in New Zealand, and I've decided eating deserves its own section. This section is for those of you who like food! It's basically just photos of some  gorgeous food, so those of you who are not foodies might want to skip this bit!


We discovered a sensational Japanese restaurant at Lake Tekapo, the Kohan Restaurant. Delicious, fresh food and the dessert was a work of art. Scrumptious, too!

In Wanaka we came across a little bistro/cafe, Relishescafe,  that was so good we had to re-visit (and I had the same dish both times!)

To get a feel for local produce, we checked out a locally owned Wanaka restaurant, Alivate. The seafood platter was superb.

And, continuing our love of Japanese food, we checked out Sasanoki Japanese Kitchen in Wanaka. No website, unfortunately, but beautiful food and great beer. And cheap!

Wyndham resort, where we stayed in Wanaka, boasts a restaurant, Rafters, where we enjoyed a lovely meal.

Our final night in New Zealand was spent at Queenstown, where we dined at Finz restaurant.