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Stu & Amy See The World!
Mount Cook Region and National Park
We said our good byes and drove to Methven, a very pretty town with Alpine feel. Not surprising really as it's a main base for skiiing in Winter. A few beers and Amy won a bit a pool and once more it's a slightly chilly evening.
The next day we walked up a glacial valley for about 5hrs adjacent to a beautifully coloured glacial river (full of rock cloud, which turns the water a milky blue colour). A recent dumping of snow covered the mountain ranges all around us and yet another picnic lunch was had with awesome views.
We drove on and spent the night in a nice place called Fairlie, which was fairly nice for the night. As Easter holidays were over the coming next few days the small town was pretty dead. We dined out of the traditional Kiwi 'fush and chups' washed down with a spanking bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. Ahhh the life.......
Next day we drove to Lake Tekapo with views of the stupendous snow covered Southern Alps under the crispest of blue skies along the way. Tekapo was a small touristy town but the lake was beautiful and massive. We walked up to the observatory (about 4hrs return) and again sat with our picnic overlooking the lake. In the afternoon we drove on to Glentanner via lake Pukaki which had stunning vistas of a cloudless Mount Cook (3700m) in the background and in the evening we caught a beautiful sunset with pretty pink skies.
The following day the good weather continued and we went for a walk up to the Hooker valley to the Hooker Glacier face. At first we were a little perplexed to see ice floating in the lake at the face of the glacier and we couldn't work out where it was coming from as the glacier face we recognized was so far away. Eventually it clicked that the rough looking rock like wall in the distance was actually the glacier transporting the rock debris it had picked up on it's way down the valley. The rock was just embedded within the ice giving it a very dark appearance.
In the afternoon we drove down to Oamaru, some 200km or so away for the Saturday night of Easter weekend. Our front left tyre on the van was technically "shot to s***" and cleverly we had not checked the spare. Salvation was found (we thought) at a little village on the way but they didn't have our size of tyre so we hobbled on into Oamaru. All tyre shops would be closed for a few more days until after Easter Monday.
We awoke to a flat front tyre and had little choice but to change to the spare. Stu was sweating buckets trying to change it when helpful kiwi bloke (who looked about 85) came over to help. With his 15 stone frame standing on one side of the wrench and Stu pulling with all his might on the other side together we undid the nuts on the tyre and changed the wheel.
A mostly lazy day, with fantastic coffee and a cake (until Amy 'accidentally' dropped my muffin in the cake) was spent until the early evening where we went to see the Yellow Eyed penguins come ashore after a had days feedin'. These guys standing at about 2ft tall were pretty cool waddling ashore and having their little welcoming parties and meetings before retiring for the night which we subsequently followed after a couple of brews and games of pool against wannabe Harley Davidson gang members.
Another relatively quiet day on Easter Monday is spent wandering around town where we see some nice colonial type buildings left over from the goldrush and tidying the van. We book ourselves into another motel for the Spurs vs Man Utd game late that night. We also go to see the little blue penguins (different from the yellowed eyed ones obviously) that night and these little dudes prefer to come in from a hard days feedin' in little groups before scampering for cover. Again really cool and once more the feeling of actually seeing the wildlife in their own natural habitat is very satisfying.
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