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So I know I haven't been that great about writing on the blog, its hard to come by internet and have enough time to think about what to write and how, but I will try to be better through NZ and add what I will call "flashbacks" to kind of recap Australia...
So, NZ has not disappointed one bit. We are so happy to be here and even happier to be out of Australia. The weather is cooler here and there is abundant water. We landed in Christchurch, camped there one night to get all our necessary supplies (car, groceries, guidebook, etc). We snagged a Lonely Planet from 1999 for $5 - perfect we thought! Better than paying $40 in Australia, even if it is 10 years old - mos of the tourist attractions are probably the same, just the price is different. Plus, we stop at all the information sites to get beta anyway. So far, so good.
We drove to Lake Tekapo Day 2. We couldn't believe how absolutely gorgeous the place is. We stopped a couple times along the highway to take photos of all the lupine - not just blue, but purple, pink, white, yellow - astounding! And we could see the mountains - needless to say, we were psyched on this place already. I'm surprised we didn't go off the road taking in the views. It never got old and even got better when we reached the Lake - WOW! Breathtaking! The water was turquoise, and surrounded by the lupine. (sigh) We found a DOC (dept. of conservation) campsite there for the night, much more economical than Holiday Parks - $5 each :)
From Lake Tekapo, we headed to Mount Cook Day 3. More great views along the road. Still amazed this day! And we got to actually see the peak as we were driving. The winds were super strong and the weather was blowing in as we were arriving at the Visitor's Center at the base of the mountain, slowly covering the peak up. We wouldn't have even known it was there if we hadn't seen it before. Originally we were going to do a hike up the Hooker Valley to check out the better glacier of the area, but with the weather looking like rain, and the wind the way it was, we decided against it, since we have to camp and if we got soaked from the hike, it would have made for an unpleasant and not to mention uncomforable evening. Instead, we hiked to what the guidebook says was a "sickly" looking glacier, since it melts from the top down and the gravel on the top covers the thing completely. The Tasman glacier was still a site to see and we could see how much the thing had melted over the last century. I was happy to see that they didn't blame global warming to the melting. Maybe they were deep down, but the sign didn't even mention it, so that was nice. We didn't want to camp in the winds, so we drove to Queenstown that afternoon. We arrived and it was raining. We hurried into the Holiday Park, since that was the only camping area around, plus, we definitely needed shelter in order to cook dinner. This worked out well, and I got a good night's sleep, but Garrett can't seem to sleep, since it doesn't get dark until 10pm and is light around 5am. This is what I imagine Alaska to be like, but possibly more extreme. I just duck under my sleeping back to hide the light :)
Today we hiked the trail up to the top of the Gondola. We really have been jonesin' for some exercise, so the 45 minute hike up was great, and it saved us $11 that they charge for the ride up in the gondola. Again, the views were absolutely amazing and it was worth the hike (although we were going to do the hike anyway) and we decided it would be worth paying to ride the gondola in the end. Garrett took his hundred thousand photos of the same exact shot and we took in the view for about 45 minutes. We were starving at the time it was for us to go down, so we opted to just pay the $12 fee to get down. Overall, a great time so far!
We can't wait to get to Fiordland, which we will head to this afternoon. We won't be doing any great walks, but hope to get a couple shorter hikes in. Pray for no rain!
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