New Zealand Part 1: Mount Cook and Te Anau (Feb 4-6)

A side note: We've added the last few blogs about our adventures in January, which are all back-dated, so you'll have to scroll down to check them out....

Now for our New Zealand adventures:

Our journey started with an evening flight on Thursday February 4th to Brisbane and another glorious night in the Formule 1 ghetto motel. We decided to go to Brisbane the night before our crossing of the Tasman Sea so that we could catch the early flight to NZ, putting us in at 2:30 PM (the alternative was getting in at midnight). Friday morning we awoke early and took a cab to the airport. Soon we were flying and three hours later we could see the Southern Alps covered in snow in the distance. We landed in Christchurch and with minimal hassle passed customs and picked up our rental car (the "Supa Saloon"). We had only 17 days total to see this bifurcated country, so we had made the decision to limit ourselves to the South Island so as not to be too rushed.

We began our drive heading south. We drove through fields and farms and small towns en route to our final destination Glentaner, situated at the bast of Mt. Cook. As usual, the drive was both beautiful but also significantly longer than expected. The trip did speed up when I figured out how to turn the car's overdive on, thereby allowing us to drive the car at less than 6,000 RPMs. That was nice and saved us heaps of gas. As we turned off the highway onto the final stretch to Glentaner, we passed Lake Pukaki, a beautiful blue glacial lake. Off in the distance behind the lake we could see Mt. Cook, the tallest moutain in New Zealand, with not a cloud in site. It was quite a site to say the least. We pulled into the parking lot of the Glentaner lodge at 8:45, only to find out that reception was about to close at 9 and the lodge's kitchen had closed back at 7:30. I think it was Blanche DuBois who said something about strangers, and Pete the hotel guy set us up. He knew we had been driving for hours and that the nearest open restaurant was over 3 hours away, so he went back in the kitchen and produced a couple of cold salami/ham sandwiches. We had bought a bottle of Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc wine earlier that afternoon, so we sat outsite on the hotel patio and had a picnic as the sun set on Mt. Cook, turning it a subtle shade of pink. It was the perfect way to start off the trip. After dinner we retreated to our little cabin and hit the hay.

The next morning we packed up and drove to the national park at the base of Mt. Cook. We made brie and apple sandwiches for breakfast, and hit the trail. The next 1.5 hours led us up a large glacial valley to a lake at the terminal edge of Hooker Glacier. The sun was bright and the sky was cloudless. Turns out the whole area had been clouded in for the last two weeks and we were lucky enough to have a day of perfect weather. After arriving at the lake we sat down to rest and have a drink of water. Soon after we started chatting with a couple of ladies resting nearby. As it turned out, one of the ladies was a photographer for our local Townsville paper The Bulletin (a.k.a. "The Bully"). She was so excited at this coincedence that she insisted in taking our picture for the paper. We posed on the shore of Hooker lake while she took over 30 photos. We said our goodbyes and made our way back down the trail.

From there we continued south, stopping for a pie and quiche lunch in Twizel followed by a brief experience at a roadside salmon farm where I bought a hunk of smoked salmon. After passing through and stocking up in Queenstown, we made our way to the day's final destination, Te Anau, which would be our base of operations for the next week. We checked in to the Top-10 Holiday Park and ventured into town for a relaxing dinner at a small pizza joint, where we had their special apricot, chicken, and brie pizza. After a long day of driving, it felt good to get into bed and go to sleep. The next day would start early.

Here are the links to some of our New Zealand photos:

Set 1 (Landscape/artistic photos)

Set 2 (General photos)