The Road to Christchurch

All three of us were headed to CHCH but R+R had booked a bus before I had offered them a lift - not such a bad deal as it was a very cheap ticket. It was due to be a 6hr drive so I set off in good time to allow myself decent stops en-route. I headed out of Wanaka passing the airport complex where the driving range and Beerworks Brewery are situated. The first skydivers of the day were heading Earth bound. The road headed north east and was unexpectedly flat to begin with before heading skywards to get over the Lindis Pass - I wasn't expecting to climb to 950m and was unprepared for such an alpine crossing, but the snow was thin and I was descending before the snow started to fall. Soon I was in Twizel, a small town constructed in the 1960's for the workers who built the nearby hydro power station. Few people decided to leave once the construction had finished and clung on to the community that had been created. Further north was Lake Tekapo - a lake full of 'rock flour' that gave it a wonderful blue hue. The snow was coming thick and fast now but luckily was not settling. I took a quick peek at the 'Church of the Old Sheppard' that takes and idyllic location at the head of the lake. Beside this is a small memorial to sheep-dogs. As was walking back a tour bus of Japanese people packed into the tiny church - not sure how they all fitted but origami must have been employed! From here to my lunch stop in Fairlie I passed thousands of cairns that had been erected at the side of the road. This strange feature must have stretched for 10-15km. My guidebook did not shed any light on this but I guess it was something that passers by regularly add to. In Fairlie I stopped at the Old Library cafe and was greeted by a Scottish accent. I gorged myself on the biggest plate of potato skins you have ever seen, smothered with tomato sauce, cheese, cream cheese and chives! With the stuff I couldn't eat in a doggy-bag I headed on to CHCH passing merino sheep farms with signs proudly declaring 'Your ICEBREAKER comes from here!' Wearing mine, i smiled at this. The Canterbury Plains from Ashburton to CHCH are boring by NZ standards so I pushed on to make the city by dark. Of course - this meant hitting the city at rush hour. Without taking a incorrect turn, I was outside The Old Countryhouse before long.

Wanaka revisited

I met up with Rhona for the final time before heading to the mechanic to take a look at my brakes that were sounding bad in Dunedin. After hanging around for a while he said they were fine so I continued on my way. First stop of the day was Arrowtown, an old mining community that has kept its 'historic' buildings and consequently its charm. I wandered around in the drizzel and had a healthy lunch of roast vegetable salad and freshly squeezed OJ. Just what I needed after a few days of takeaways. Back in the car I drove to Wanaka via Cromwell. The wind had picked up and was buffeting the car quite a bit. R+R were waiting for me in the hostel when I checked in. We went out for a coffee and cake before heading to Cinema Paradiso to watch a British comedy called Grow Your Own. It was another good evening in the best cinema in town!


We woke up to glorious sunshine and took the opportunity to scale the dizzying height of Mt Iron. The 549m peak took some 45mins to accend and got us very warm in the sun. From the summit we could see the bad weather coming in over Treble Cone and decided to head down. We made some sandwiches and headed to the lake shore for a picnic in the sun. We went to the small brewery - Wanaka Beerworks and sampled their 3 brews before going on a brief tour of the tiny brewery. Hitting some balls at the golf driving range entertained us for the afternoon. Back in the hostel we cooked tea and then headed to bed for an early night.


Today we went to Puzzling World. This is a place full of optical illusions and a giant maze. It was a great place to spend the morning, getting lost for over an hour in the maze and trying to find our way out again. Despite the rain and my lack of waterproof I still had fun. Lunch was taken care of in a small whole-food cafe which filled a hole after the maze.

Queenstown

I left 'Dunners' and drove north up the coast for an hour to reach the Moeraki Boulders. These are large, spherical boulders that lie on the beach, averaging about 1m in diameter. It was an awesome thing to see, there is one that seems to be emerging out of the sea-cliff - as if the cliff is giving birth to the rock. From here I headed inland on my way to Queenstown. The drive took me longer than expected. On the way I was overtaking by a large group of motorcyclists out of a Saturday ride to a pub. I later past all the bikes parked up outside a rural pub. I drove through miles and miles of Otago's old goldfields and eventually made it to Alexandra. From here it was just a short drive on to Cromwell and then on into Queenstown itself. I parked up outside the Butterfli Backpackers and headed off into town to meet Rob. I found him, beer in hand sitting outside Dux de Lux. Dux has a craft brewery and brews 8 beers including a loverly ginger beer. Rach, Shelley and a friend were off having some skiing lessons at Cardrona. In the evening we all got a takaway curry and sat in their holiday apartment gorging ourselves. We headed back to Dux to try some other varieties of beer.


I spent the following morning wandering around town then walked up the Ti Ki Track to the skyline complex. I large mountain-top restaurant and gondola station. The views were awesome and the sun was warm as paragliders took off to land in the valley below. I dodged having to pay and caught the gondola back down for free. Back in the town I treated myself to an ice cream (which I later dropped on the floor by accident) and rendezvoused with the others. We sat in an irish pub and had mulled wine as the sun dipped behind Ben Lomand. I had a Fergburger for dinner. Ever since my previous trip to NZ I have been pining for one of these. It was good. I faught through the crowds and took my burger to the waterfront where I found a bench to enjoy it in solitude.