I'll state again that while the people working in the Department of Conservation (DOC) can at times be kind of annoying, they do manage to set up pretty amazing tramping routes. I'm referring here to my last post from Wanaka where I whine about not getting enough stuff for free, mainly in the form of freedom camping. They really don't want you to know about the places where it's possible and I don't know why. Take the place we started our day at: the parking lot of Diamond Lake just west of Wanaka, where camping is allowed for self-contained vehicles for a maximum of four days. We had driven in in dusk and rain, but once morning was upon us we woke on a beautiful expanse of cattle fields surrounded by snow topped mountains. It was just amazing. Why it's not on any maps and why the nearest DOC information center refused to tell about it is beyond me.

The weather had been rainy for the past few days so we wanted to make the most out of the clear morning. After eating breakfast we took off to the tramping routes and walked up to the Lake Wanaka lookout, which took us about 45 minutes one way. They seldom have loop trails here. That didn't matter though, because the scenery was truly amazing, especially at the lookout where we in one direction we had a view of the rain-swollen lake, blue, still and beautiful, and in another direction we had the high snow topped peaks. It was all very Middle-Earthy, that's all I can say. Except for the sheep, I have no idea how they were able to film six movies in New Zealand without accidentally making instant stars out of about two thousand sheep.

After the short tramping trip we got on the road and headed back to Wanaka in an equally scenic environment. We were heading to Queenstown and had two optional routes, of which we chose the one that simply came first. We took the smaller road through Cardona and were glad of it as the sights kept on improving. We found ourselves on the highest paved road in New Zealand, the highest point of which, at Crown Range Summit (1076 meters), offered a superb view to the valley before us. It was also allowed to camp out there in a self-contained vehicle, but it would be very windy. I'm guessing this was the scenic route the nice Australian couple we met in Christchurch had suggested us. We always fail to write these things down… We resumed the trip by descending down a serpentine road into the valley floor where the road merged with SH6, our other option for the way to Queenstown. We passed by the historic Arrowtown in hopes of making it all the way to Glenorchy while the fine weather still lasted, and made it to the action packed Queenstown. Our efforts of finding a place to park in the middle of town proved futile so we ended up quite far from the center, all the better for taking in the views on the way back though.

Queenstown is instantly appealing, there's no doubt about that. The lake beside it is almost turquoise and backed by pristine mountains. It's compact and easy to traverse by foot and there's a nice park along the shoreline where you can use the communal grills to have a picnic. That being said, while the appeal is instant, it didn't last very long. The natural beauty of the spot is unquestionable, but the town itself is littered with everything associated with too many tourist packing themselves in too little space. Every shop in town is named some sort of a "tourist information" like in some of the worst places in Asia. At least the shops are more presentable, as they should be, since they are offering hugely expensive products ranging from parachuting, jet boating, bungee jumping, to… Actually, there is no end to it really, you can do basically anything in Queenstown, at least as long as it includes a minor chance of plummeting really fast against something really hard.

We're not that into stuff like that. Not because there's not a small daredevil sitting on my shoulder, whispering things like "I bet you wouldn't dare to try that" in my ear, but really, those things are expensive. We're on a long trip with still three months to go, we can't go around throwing money in every direction. We're here for the scenery, so we ended up leaving Queenstown pretty quickly, but not before stocking up on groceries and gasoline and having a lunch at Domino's pizza. That is without a doubt the best value for money by the way, as far as "restaurant" lunches go. For $4.99 each we got the most satisfying and filling pizzas imaginable.

From Queenstown we took the road west towards Glenorchy, of which we had heard much praise. Also the road itself is advertised as one of the top 10 scenic roads in the world! It wasn't bad, I have to admit. We followed the turquoise lake along a steep cliff face with stunning views of the mountains in the south. Sadly the weather took a turn to the worse and almost instantly we were submerged in rain and fog once more. This dampened our spirits considerably, since the views we had come so far to see were now veiled in dull gray. 48 kilometers and about 45 minutes after leaving Queenstown we arrived in Glenorchy, which was similarly rainy and bleak. We found the Glenorchy Hotel & Backpackers that the Australian couple had recommended easily enough (it's not that big a town) but were surprised by the revelation that it wasn't quite as cheap as we had been led to believe. A powered site proved to be $10 as we'd heard, but the use of the showers required a further $10. At this point I have to admit that I have become somewhat cheap on the road and that this, as a result, seemed almost a deal-breaker to me. Then again, we weren't going to find a powered site for $20 anywhere else on the island, so we took it, and spent the night on the gravel parking lot next to the restaurant/bar/hotel/lodge/shop. It was a fair deal in the end since we used our share of electricity with the 2000 Watt heater we rented with the car. The night was chilly and ever rainy…

The morning didn't turn out to be much of an improvement with the heavens continuing to bless us with more rain. One of the reasons for coming all the way to Glenorchy was to see the filming sites of the Lord of the Rings movies, mainly Isengard, but in the end we decided not to venture further in to the periphery just for that. Seeing the places where they had the actors doing something in the films is pretty irrelevant, in the end. I mean, New Zealand is full of places just like you see in the movies, or even better. Besides, we have some of them on Blu-Ray, which is basically the same as seeing them in real life, right?

We followed the same top 10 road back to Queenstown and emptied our waste tanks at the dump station before continuing the SH6 towards east. We had made the decision of skipping Dunedin, which I recently learned is an actual place instead of a fantasy one, and heading a little more north on the east coast instead. To this end we followed the SH6 to Cromwell, stopping to make a short tramping loop around the Peregrine vinery (because we happened to spot the trail and it wasn't raining at the time, it was nice but in the otherwise majestic nature of New Zealand unspectacular). Sini got her fruit fix from one of the multiple fruit stalls near Cromwell, the road there is surrounded by apple orchards and such. From there we headed north on the road number 8 all the way to Omarama, through some farming and cattle country, and more rain. We had a DOC basic campsite in our sights, a one called Ahuriri Bridge. The DOC leaflet about the campsites told that the site was prone to flooding, but luckily the rains had not been sufficient to drown it yet. Like all DOC basic sites it was just a grass expanse with a pit toilet, and most importantly, free.

As a couple of students from very far away I believe we are allowed to enjoy the free things in life without someone thinking that we should take our things elsewhere and pay for accommodation since we have the money. Instead I believe it gives us the right to wonder why other people are so protective of their wallets. At the free campsite we saw what was by far the biggest recreational vehicle either of us had ever seen. It was huge, like a double decker bus that had additional fold-in boxes protruding out of three different spots. And it came with a garage on wheels, it was towing a trailer that had a normal car on it, halfway in a large white box of its own. The whole thing must have been bigger than our one bedroom flat in Lappeenranta, even if it was in just one floor, which I sincerely doubt. The thing was twice the height of our Mighty Jackpot, a raised Toyota Hiace that I could almost stand straight inside of. Beside the beached whale of an RV it didn't look all that mighty anymore…

And yes, I am jealous. I considered at one point knocking on the RV's door to see if I could get a tour of the insides but decided not to. I didn't want to ruin their Persian rugs with the sheep droppings clinging to the bottoms of my hiking boots.