After a beautiful couple of days in Hanmer Springs,
we aimed south again and were off. It
was surprising to see the landscapes that we had driven through in darkness to
reach Hanmer Springs, now revealed to us by day – gorges, rivers, plains and
distant mountains. It was a bit sad to
leave behind the closeness of the Southern Alps and the striking scenery of the
mountains for the continuous reaches of the agricultural Canterbury plains. We bypassed the South Island’s biggest city, Christchurch, in favour
of the scenic detour route. Although not
so impressed by the scenery here, we were pleasantly surprised to discover a
couple of moa on the roadside, near a disused community hall. Moa are thought to be extinct in NZ, for over
200 years, but here was a couple, with an egg even, just posing beside the
road. There did seem to be something
strange about them though… Maybe their
nonchalance at the passing traffic and our close approach? Maybe their unusual hollow appearance? Or
perhaps their lack of feathers? Their
outlines seemed to be formed by meshed steel wire, rather than organic skin and
bones.
It was a good spot for a picnic lunch
though. We fired up our gas cooker for
the first time and made some nice warm treats to sustain us.
Our path then lead us back towards the Southern Alps and an understandable drop in
temperature. Just on dusk we reached the
township at Lake Tekapo,
an historic farming area of New
Zealand, home to the old stone church and
sheep-dog statue. (Historic by NZ
standards being over 100 years) We
bypassed them for the time being though; our priority was finding a warm cabin
for the night. It was definitely going
to be too cold for our tent!! Luckily
there was a hot pool complex nearby, which we made use of that night :) We woke
to a bitterly cold morning with frost on every surface around – plants, cars
and bikes included. We went walking
anyway, to check out the lakefront, but soon felt the unmistakeable touch of
snowflakes on our cheeks. This was
Rachel’s first experience in snow! She
was amazed at the sight of it and how it felt to catch a falling snowflake in
your mouth. The South
Island really was out to impress us!
This taste of snow wasn’t quite enough for us,
so we set off to the village
of Mt Cook (named for
NZ’s highest mountain which towers above you from there). We passed a flock of sheep on the road,
reminiscent of a picture Rachel has of sheep being driven along that very
road. Only the skies weren’t quite as
blue for us as they were in her picture.
We faced an ominous black cloud, obscuring any view of Mt Cook and even
swallowing up the road itself, not far ahead of us. The snow on the ground thickened as we slowly
drove up towards the village, until we were in the carpark, surrounded not by
grey asphalt, but by a soft white carpet of fresh snow. Rachel experienced another first here – a snow
fight!
After perusing the DoC information office, we
set off, with our warmest clothes, on a short walk through the alpine native forest. It was like walking into Narnia, under full
control of the snow queen. We marvelled
at the clumps of snow gingerly clinging to branches and tried to capture the magic
of it on camera, but it just doesn’t work the same. At the highest point we had a view over the
frozen valley below and the surrounding mountains with their peaks in the
clouds. We waited for a while and were
rewarded with a brief view of Aoraki / Mt Cook (we’re pretty sure it
was!). We also put our creative energies to use and
built a snow-woman. Another first for Rachel
that day!
It was hard to drag ourselves away from that beautiful,
magical place, but the road was beckoning, with further adventures in
store. Our short time at Mt Cook would however,
remain in our minds as one of the highlights of our trip.
