We left Auckland Wednesday morning Oct. 26th and flew to Christchurch. We stayed in the home of Kate & Stuart who are relatives of a good friend from when we lived in London. Their home is in the “Orange Zone” which means they have been waiting for 9 months to hear if the government is going to repair the infrastructure in their neighborhood or tell them to tear their house down. Their stories reminded us of the nightmare of Katrina in New Orleans with the added horror of constant after-shocks. Yesterday we set off to drive to Lake Tekapo. Along the way I said to Carolyn that I was sceneried-out and was finding it hard to believe that the South Island would be that much more scenic than what we saw in the North Island. Ten minutes later we came over a pass and below us was the beautiful turquoise water of Lake Tekapo surrounded by snow capped mountains and I took back what I had just said. We took a cabin in a travel park, with a view of the lake, which was walking distance to a trail up to the observatory at the top of Mount John and an even shorter walk to thermal pools where we spent a few hours as darkness closed over us.
Today we set off for New Zealand’s highest mountain, Mt Cook. We were planning to have a quick look around, a short hike, and continue on to Wanaka. The views were so stunning Carolyn actually used the word “awesome”.. (She quickly revised her exclamation to ‘awe inspiring’). The weather is glorious and the mountains so spectacular that we decided to spend the night so that Tom can wake up on his 59th birthday to this wonderful view.
