Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
April 20th - 22nd Twizel/ lake tekapo/geraldine-on route to Queenstown
After leaving the 5 star hospitality of Chris and Jackies place we ventured back onto the road in our moving home. We traveled south to christchurch only briefly seeing the city (collecting a parking ticket nonetheless) and headed back on route south We passed through some great little towns like Geraldine,stopping for ice cream and a quick walk round the very English strip of shops.
Amazing drive to Lake Tekapo, route 8 took us on a long journey with the panoramic view of snow capped mountains. Very quiet, no one around but a car on the road from time to time. Lake Tekapo was incredible, turquoise blue water caused by rock minerals reflecting sunlight. Visited historic church on the waters edge, very old according to new zealanders but was built quite recently 1922
23rd
Drove through remarkables mountain range, considered sleeping on mountain edge but high wind speeds and rain put us off. We continued creeping down the mountains, completing right angle turns down ridiculous corners. We then arrived in 'Arrowtown' with the autumn festival in full swing, there were hight powered lights illuminating the wealth of trees in and around the town, lots of red and yellow leaves,lining the quirky streets. The town was small and had an American small town vibe to it. It felt like a new england upper class university campus town, something out of a jd sallinger short story... or gilmore girls. Anyway it was as picturesque as you can get, with a mixture of old wooden gold rush era buildings, Victorian street lamps and boutique style shops, particular interest was an old fashioned sweet shop. The town was very romantic in the evening with fairy lights everywhere. We came back in the morning to see it again with a fresh onslaught of rain.
What we were unaware of (being out of sync with news and weather from our habitual car existance) was that a storm front 'fret' had moved into the queenstown area. The next two days were spent watching the rain hammer our car. It rained solidly for 48 hours quite remarkable. Despite this we weren't put off queenstown- cool streets with so much to do, that we vowed to wait the appalling weather out and enjoy what the town had to offer in a better climate.
- comments