Day 14: Lake Tekapo

Scottie’s Story

We arrived at Lake Tekapo to stay at Lake Tekapo Village Motel and Stay in Tekapo Backpackers and it is definitely geared at backpackers. We had a room with a lakeside view, as long as you ignored the car park and looked between the buildings you could see the lake. Joking apart though, basic as it was, it was clean and all we needed for our 1 nighter here.

We dumped our bags and headed off to experience the Grand Traverse with Air Safaris. It advertises its flight (The Grand Traverse) as the “flight of a lifetime”, exploring the incredible world heritage Aoraki Mount Cook and Westland National Parks. They certainly did not disappoint – it was amazing, if not a bit exciting at times. The plane was really small – everyone had a window seat and 9 of us plus pilot took up the whole plane. We were in the row behind the pilot and there was not a lot of leg room for me, so anyone taller (i.e. most folk) might have found it a bit of a tight fit. The pilot was very laid back and commentated while he “drove” – he pointed out the different glaciers, glacial rivers, lake and landmarks too many to write down as I was busy taking way too many photos. I have no idea how I am going to select a handful of photos out of the vast numbers that we both took – it is hard to get the photos to communicate the sheer scale or closeness, so it will probably just look like a load of snowy hills, but honestly it was breathtaking. We got, what felt, incredibly close to the snow-covered mountains, although sometimes I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths, especially when over the glacial turquoise water. The time flew (sorry) past and before long we were heading back down and after a smooth touchdown, we were soon back in the car and en route to our luxurious room.

We were booked on a Star Gazing Tour later in the evening and as part of the ticket we had access to the spa pools. We duly walked there along the lakeside, which was lovely, but pretty cold from the reaction of the few folk going in for a quick dip. We got to the heated spa pools, and I decided to stay on dry land – it was a bit busy and I am not a water baby, so it was a bit of a no brainer for me – my Kindle won, and I read while Rob enjoyed a lovely, warm soak.

Unfortunately, there was something like 98% cloud cover which basically put the kybosh on the star gazing, which was really disappointing as it sounded like a pretty cool tour. Instead, they would show videos of what we could have seen, but that wasn’t really going to cut it for us, so we stayed in and enjoyed a slap-up meal of cheese / pate on crackers washed down with a glass of wine, followed by a fruit salad from the nearby supermarket. There were no plates, but saucers did the job instead.

Morning arrived and it was time to move on again. Breakfast was muesli in a mug, eaten with a teaspoon as there were no bowls. We just went with the flow and laughed – it is all part of the experience, and it tasted just as good in a mug.

Before heading off though, Rob had booked us both in for an hour-long massage – it was just what my body needed as my back did not appreciate the bed in the Airbnb in Lake Wanaka – the bed felt OK, but my back said no way Jose and caused me to get up at ungodly o’clock (6:30am) both mornings to try to get it to behave. Feeling rejuvenated post-massage, we headed to Christchurch where we will be based for the next week, thanks to the generosity of a school & lacrosse friend who has a flat there.

We had heard that the New Zealand roads are not great, but we have found them fine, OK they are single carriageway with few dual carriageways, but the traffic is light and it moves fine. We were about 1 hour into the 3-hour trip to Christchurch when we noticed lots of brake lights ahead and stationary oncoming traffic – a double articulated lorry had somehow spread itself across the road and was blocking traffic both ways. I have no idea what caused it or how long it would take to clear so we saw a couple of cars take a right turn and we checked Google maps and could see that we could take this road too. I had barely gone 100m when I realised that this was a bad, OK very bad idea. It was an untarmacked road covered in that horrible hardcore stuff that loves to ping up and chip paint, as well as being a bit of a skid risk. Although it was not my car, I could not bring myself to drive fast as it could easily damage the tyres & paintwork, so I took it pretty easy, but even then, I had a few moments when the car just skidded on the hardcore, thanks goodness I was going slowly. It was also raining steadily and there were a few more slides, this time on mud. In all honesty, it was not a bundle of fun, and I was very glad when we got back onto real roads again, with everything intact and no chipped paintwork.

The rest of the journey was uneventful and wet, sometimes very wet, but we got to Christchurch safe and sound late afternoon. We hadn’t eaten since breakfast so headed out to find a restaurant – Christchurch is quite big but we found a pub and had a really nice meal. Funnily enough I had fish and (hallelujah) vegetables, not chips. An early night tonight as we have an early start tomorrow. Forecast in Christchurch for tomorrow – 100% chance of rain, luckily we are heading elsewhere where it is only 88% chance of rain – waterproofs at the ready. Thank you New Zealand for making us feel so at home.

Rob’s Reflections

Lake Tekapo

It was a 2.5 hour drive from Wanaka, and although not as exciting as the Crown Ridge journey, there was still plenty of dramatic scenery on view. We arrived too early to check in to our next accommodation, so instead went for lunch – trio of beef, lamb and venison cooked on a ‘steak stone’ – a very hot stone on your plate that allows you to dry fry to your precise requirements. A quick swap of my venison for Lorna’s lamb, and all was well.

Today’s main tourism event was a flight to see the mountains and glaciers, taking off in a Cessna Grand Caravan (seating 10, if you include our pilot Justin). One of the passengers even got to sit up front next to him, but everyone had a fantastic view through large windows below the level of the wing. It’s difficult to express in words how awe inspiring this trip was – we saw Mount Cook, the Franz Josef glacier, and too many other objects for my brain to remember. Like the highlands of Scotland, but Spinal Tap have turned it up to 11; or like my GCE Geography teacher has insisted we go over all the glaciation processes and features in glorious full HD & Technicolor. We were in the air for an hour, and got loads of great pictures, and enjoyed an informative running commentary from the pilot.

While we were lucky with the weather for the flight, the clouds were closing in. We abandoned plans to go on guided stargazing, as the night sky visibility was going to be zero. We did see a vivid rainbow instead.

We had a Swedish massage booked for the next morning – which was a really relaxing way to complete this segment of the holiday.

Next day – another roadtrip! Estimated 3.5 hours. That didn’t take into account an articulated lorry breaking down, blocking traffic in both directions. No problem, we thought, we can follow that car that just turned off onto a side road. Ha ha ha… that led to an exciting diversion, up hill and down dale, on an increasingly narrow single track road, made of slippery chippings and with steep inclines on one side or the other. Eventually we rejoined the original route, but I’m not sure how much time we saved. Destination Christchurch.