Honeymooning in the Land of the Long White Cloud.

[Pug1]

enjoying the report GarrettM, brings back memories, and I'm glad to see Lyttleton recovering. We are boarding Ms Noordam (Holland America) in Sydney this afternoon and will be heading for Fjordland in two days, then Dunedin. I guess you will be heading for Queenstown, Milford Sound etc. so if you see a big blue hulled cruise ship in Milford or Dunedin we will be on board! Enjoy the rest of your honeymoon and I wish you both a long and happy life together.

 

[GarrettM]

enjoying the report GarrettM, brings back memories, and I'm glad to see Lyttleton recovering. We are boarding Ms Noordam (Holland America) in Sydney this afternoon and will be heading for Fjordland in two days, then Dunedin. I guess you will be heading for Queenstown, Milford Sound etc. so if you see a big blue hulled cruise ship in Milford or Dunedin we will be on board! Enjoy the rest of your honeymoon and I wish you both a long and happy life together.

Thanks Pug1. I should say though that this trip was actually almost 18 months ago now. It's just taken me this long to putting it into a report!

 

[kermatu]

Belated congrats GarrettM, and thanks for posting.

I was in Christchurch recently (mainly for work) and 'sense of sadness' is a great description. Given it was summer (albeit on rainy days while I was there) I couldn't help but feel the locals were very down. I met a few Chinese and French tourists who were by far and away the most upbeat.

That said there were some pockets where a sense of adventure, style and optimism was present.

I went out of my way to support restaurants / cafes / shops while there. Still feel the city has a long way to go.

 

[GarrettM]

Off we go to Tekapo!

The very small town of Tekapo sits on the southern shore of the lake of the same name, in the McKenzie Basin. The lake itself is maybe 15 kilometres long and close enough to five kilometres at its widest point. And, since it's fed from streams running down from the nearby ice-capped mountains, I am going to guess it's pretty bloody cold.
The town is about a three hour drive from Christchurch. The road south-west from Christchurch is fairly straight and flat through some agricultural areas, before it starts to get more twisty through the hills and Middle Valley.
Visually, the highlight of the drive is probably Burkes Pass, which in places gives you a really nice view of the mountains in the distance off both sides of the road.
As for Tekapo itself.

Only a few hundred people live here full-time. It's sheep country, with the very small church on the shore of the lake aptly named Church of the Good Shepherd. It was built in the 1920s or 30s I think. You can walk in and take a look at it but they ask you not to take pics or anything like that.

Just to the right of the church as you face the lake is the Dog Statue, built in the 1960s. It's dedicated to all the working dogs of the McKenzie Basin.

 

[GarrettM]

We stayed at the Lake Tekapo Cottages.
There's a handful of hotels on the main road in and on the edge of town. The cottages were certainly nothing flash. But for a couple of nights they would do the job for us, as we'd be out and about quite a bit anyways.
About 40ks south-west of Tekapo, and just past Twizel (another prime LoTR tourist area for those interested) we checked out the High Country Salmon Farm. It operates on a little off-shoot of Lake Ruataniwha. We just fed some pellets to some of the fish. You can obviously buy salmon products here as well. But I really don't think much of them on the table, which I'm sure is near enough to blasphemy on this site. Whatever.


Here you can see a little of how and where their operation is set up. Not surprisingly they have more than the occasional escapee. In fact there are some very very big fish roaming the waters on the edges of the farm, because they can score a free feed that way. There's a ban on fishing within a hundred metres or so, but there's always some people fishing just outside that. So there's definitely enough of a chance of catching something worth a pic at least.

 

[GarrettM]

Lake Tekapo is considered to have one of the clearest atmospheres any where in the world, and is regarded as an excellent spot for a little - or a lot - of stargazing. On the western side of the lake, up a road on a hill, is the Mt John University Observatory.


From here you can look back down across the town...


or north to Lake Alexandria...


or anywhere else you feel like...


For miles and miles in any direction. There's a cafe at the top which does ok food. But it's kind of all glass, so on a sunny day it gets quite warm. Again it pays to be sun-smart. And then once you get outside the chill kicks in again pretty fast.

We also tried to get some pics of the night sky from the shores of the lake. But we had to wait for almost midnight because of clouds, which wasn't that enticing. Also it's cold, and the mosquitos were the size of small planes.

We also had a couple visits to the Tekapo Springs. I was very keen to try out the hot springs, but as the wife was pregnant I ended up enjoying them by myself on a solo trip. She did enjoy the outdoor pools though. Again, don't forget to be sun smart. I wasn't, and I ended up with quite the pink torso as a result.

 

[GarrettM]

Couple more random Lake Tekapo pics.
It's really a rather spectacular spot for a photo.

The lake was modified for hydroelectricity and still powers the town. It's dammed at the southern end (the River Tekapo) but I think it allows spillage from the lake through or over the top every now and again. When that happens a few resident fish come along for the ride. The problem for them is they then have nowhere to go from there, as there's no connection from the pool at the rear of the dam to the actual river. The actual hydro feed flow is all underground. So I guess these fish just hang out in the decent sized swimming pool behind the dam, until some enterprising locals come and take them away to, I'm sure, release them to bigger water.

I stopped and watched at least 20 fish cruise around for 10 to 15 minutes. Again there were some very big ones. I'm sure the small ones that get sucked in there don't last too long. Predation must be brutal. Anyway, here is one of those fish. Or two if you look closely enough.


All in all here's not a lot to Lake Tekapo, but it's a very nice place to stop by for a visit. Don't expect much and you won't be disappointed. The nearby country ranges from superb to spectacular. But it's not really somewhere you'd rush back to.

Next, our wandering over Wanaka!

 

[GarrettM]

Wanaka is a fairly sizable town on the southern flank of Lake Wanaka, which is fed by a bunch of streams and such from Mount Aspiring National Park. It is VERY picturesque.
We drove into town around midday and found our hotel, in this case the Hotel Mercure Oakridge. It's a little out of town and appropriately quiet. Comfortable too.
After having a tasty pub lunch at the Alivate Restaurant and Bar, we walked around and explored the town. After that we mostly just relaxed, but MrsGM suggested a plan for the following day - a road trip to the Fox Glacier.

And so we woke up bright and early and began the four hour journey to Fox Glacier, 260 kilometres away. It started comfortably enough. We stopped at a little road side stop on the western edge of Lake Hawea for some pics.

The road goes up the western side of Lake Hawea, before crossing over a land bridge known as The Neck, which separates that lake from Lake Wanaka. It then skirts up and around Mt Aspiring National Park, out to the western seaboard at Haast, and along up the coast. It's very windy, and on this day it was also very windy. And very wet. Seriously it was torrential. With the road going up and down the ranges, there were plenty of places where natural waterfalls were running across the tarmac.
That also led to us encountering this type of thing more than once.

Certainly added a lot of time to our trip, and an element of driving uncertainty in our little Yaris. Mind you there were again plenty of people who didn't let a little rain, or threat of being crushed by boulders, slow them down.
Speaking of locals...

The drive itself was nice enough. Or at least it would be on a clear day. But with the non-stop rain and clouds destroying the view we were just focussed on getting to the glacier.
Which we did to after about four and half hours behind the wheel. Or more accurately, we got to the carpark at Fox Glacier, where we learnt access to the glacier had been closed that morning due to bad weather and flood risks.

Boy were we thrilled!
All we could do was take a short walk down to a lookout near the carpark, but again the conditions stymied us.

Somewhere out there is a big sheet of ice, but if you can spot it you're doing better than I.
So after all that off we trudged back to Wanaka, through more rain, over more one way bridges, and around more slipped rock walls. It certainly was an adventure.
The total trip took us around 10 hours and it's now one of those memories we can laugh about. Which is just as good as one you treasure I guess.
Oh well.
Fortunately my next Wanaka experience would be slightly more positive. After almost two weeks in New Zealand, I was FINALLY about to do some fishing.

 

[Deleted member]

Lovely report, I'm feeling homesick again. Time for a visit.

 

[GarrettM]

Putting the disappointment of our Fox Glacier misadventure behind us, it was an early morning wake up for breakfast in town, ahead of a little fishing. Unbeknownst to me the new bride had arranged for me to get out on a boat with Davy Pattison from Adventure Wanaka, who runs trout and salmon fishing sessions from on Lake Wanaka. Luckily we had arranged to meet at gentleman's hours of 9am, so plenty of time for a second coffee.

Joining Davy and I was a young Englishman named Tom who'd been in New Zealand for a few months. He'd been travelling around the world for a while financing himself by getting random jobs in random countries and just generally enjoying life. It sounds semi-nice but it's a bit much for me. Tom hadn't really done a lot of fishing before and had definitely never caught a trout or salmon.
Lake Wanaka - like a lot of big NZ lakes - holds both brown and rainbow trout and chinook salmon. And all three species are available in big sizes if you're prepared to put the effort in. Quite a lot of boats on the lake, and always anglers moving around to known spots, as well as fly-casters haunting some of the accessible shore based areas.
But for us we'd be trolling trust Tassie Devil lures through some common fishy hangouts.

It took a while to hook up, and we didn't catch a heap of fish, but in the end Tom was able to tick off a trout and salmon from his fishing bucket list.
And I managed to catch a couple of chinooks and a brace of nice rainbow trout. I'd caught bigger trout on lures in Harvey Dam south of Perth, but this was still pretty neat.

This one actually turned into lunch on board the boat, courtesy of Davy's little onboard gas barbecue. It was ok, although I am not a big trout guy. Far too dense a fish for my taste. But each to their own. All fish caught did end up in the esky and we had the option of taking our own, but it wasn't really feasible for me. Davy didn't mind keeping them as he was hosting a couple of hard-core fly-fishos from east coast Australia and he knew they wouldn't go to waste.

Before I knew it we were back at the dock and I was meeting up with the wife again, and after a quick hot shower back at the hotel we were ready for the next part of our Wanaka stay - Puzzling World!

 

[GarrettM]

If I had to guess I would say most families who visit Wanaka would spend a fair bit of time at Puzzling World, just outside town. Welcome to Wanaka's Wonderful World of Weirdness! » Puzzling World

It's got all sorts of cool things, like a hall of following faces, a big outdoor maze (which eventually gave me the ****s), some cool holographic rooms and optical illusion rooms. As well as a big indoor play area with table set up so kids can try lots of different little puzzles and such.

And it has a truly awful tilted room, that made me dizzy as soon as I set foot in it. Just terrible.

But seriously if you have kids and are going to this part of New Zealand, put Puzzling World on your itinerary.



After all that puzzling I had well and truly earned myself a decent steak dinner, and we indulged at the Wanaka Speights Ale House.
Speaking of Speights, although I am not much of a drinker these days, I did find time to enjoy a few of the local beers during our stay. I seem to recall they were alright.

Anyways that was Wanaka. Next up was the shortish drive down to Queenstown for what would be the last leg of our trip.

 

[Milboo]

I can't bring myself to return to Christchurch. I lived in the city for 6 years as a student (plus 10 years in North Canterbury as a kid) but it's no longer the city I loved so much.

Pleased you saw Akaroa though - it too is a special place for me as my family were part of the original settlers. Plus there is an awesome spot for fish and chips on the water!

 

[GarrettM]

Queenstown.

From Wanaka you get two road options to Queenstown. There's the Luggate-Cromwell which takes you east of Mt Pisa and back up under the Roaring Meg (good wine country apparently), or you can cut through to the west of Mt Pisa along the Cardrona Valley Road, which then becomes the Crown Range Road. That's the shorter option by distance, but according to The Crown Range | Queenstown, New Zealand it's a longer travel time. Go figure.

It's another enjoyable drive though, with plenty of impressive scenery along the way. Snow-capped peaks, wildlife, livestock, wildflowers, and water bodies.


And as you approach Queenstown there is a big parking area where you can stop and take a look a the town from afar.

After you get past that there is a really gnarly section of the road with about seven or eight very tight hairpin turns coming down the mountain to Arrowtown. Quite the experience.

Arrowtown is an old gold mining town north of Queenstown that boomed (by NZ standards) in the 1850s and 60s. These days it's a tourist hub mostly, although a couple thousand people still live there. It's 12-15 kilometres outside Queenstown. For a bit of a laugh we looked at some available real estate in this area and the prices were fairly hefty. Some pretty nice homesteads though.

 

[GarrettM]

After stopping in Arrowtown for a bite and some pics, we made our way into Queenstown to our accommodation at Lomond Lodge.
There was a minor mishap with the checking in, because I had incorrectly thought I'd already paid for our room, but it turned out I hadn't. So I had to fork out another $450 I hadn't expected.
That sucked because that was basically our entertainment budget for the last three days of our trip, which meant we were going to have to scrap some planned activities.
But to be honest we didn't mind too much. Queenstown is an adventurer's delight, and I'm not all that adventurous. And the wife was pregnant. So things like paragliding, luge riding, and the jet boat weren't high on our wish lists anyways.

But back to Lomond Lodge. We'd booked one of the two upstairs rooms, with a balcony that offered some view of the lake and across to the gardens. It wasn't a massive view, but it was ok, and within our budget. Certainly comfortable enough.


We also got a bonus view though. Or I did. The window above our toilet looked up over to Queenstown Hill Recreation Reserve! So whenever I needed to whizz I would see paragliders launching off their little area over town. Pretty cool. A lot of the ski based resorts are up on that hill as well, so it must look pretty incredible when the snow kicks in.

 

[GarrettM]

We didn't really have anything earmarked for these few days, as we didn't want to be committed to anything. MrsGM had been suffering morning sickness on and off all trip, so it was just easier to take each day as it happened. Which works for me at any time.
She did find a semi-decent solution to the morning sickness, which we used throughout our holiday.

Honestly in the two weeks we were there she must have gone through 25-30 packets of the things. I'm sure on one day it was nothing BUT sour patch kids. But whatever it worked and she stayed happy. So I happily recommend them to anyone else in the same situation, although YMMV.

We did go on a little lake cruise (I can't remember the company now) which took us over for a look at the southern leg of Lake Wakatipu, and then up into the small Frankton Arm of the lake, which leads up to the local airport. The planes come in here quite low and it's pretty impressive.

A bit OT and many of you would have seen this I am sure, but it's an awesome video of decent into ZQN through snow caps and cloud. Only problem is the maker has used Coldplay for a soundtrack. *shudder* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mxmFCw-Dig

We also drove around to the Queenstown Gardens, which I really liked. Heaps of imported species that had been planted many many years ago and have grown to impressive size.

 

[GarrettM]

The little harbour offers pedestrian access essentially all around, which also extends into the local streets and shopping precinct.
We found a stall that advertised a decent meal of fish and chips and gave that a go. It didn't disappoint. Thankfully they weren't serving trout.

Speaking of trout, all forms of fishing are banned within a specified limit of the harbour. And almost everyone who visits the harbour is eating something on the water's edge, and they all throw scraps in. And whatever the gulls and ducks don't get, the fish do. And that means there are some very big salmon and trout in there. And they also happen to have no regard for the presence of people.

I have a few videos of some big fish casually swimming up and down along the boardwalk in less than two feet of water, in bright sunshine, waiting for a morsel to come their way. Remarkable.



Here's a man and his trusty/beloved sheep.


Small admission to make. I think ducks are awesome. And not just taste wise.

 

[GarrettM]

Food.

As mentioned we found some decent fish and chips, and also enjoyed a solid steak meal at Pog Mahones Irish Pub - Welcome to Pog Mahone's Irish Pub and Restaurant in Queenstown.

But, if Pedro's is THE place in Christchurch you must visit, than Fergburger is THE place you must visit in Queenstown. And I think everyone does visit, as it's packed from morning till late. In fact a lot of the day the line snakes its way down the street, causing issues for other retailers in the area.
But whatever, it's top notch. They offer a range of beef, chicken, lamb, and other burger options. All with catchy names.


The beast of the menu is known as the Big Al, and is the centre of some sort of self-imposed challenge for some people. It's 1/2 pound of beef in two patties, with bacon, cheese, two eggs, beetroot, lettuce, tomato, and red onion. People look to get themselves on some sort of leaderboad by eating it an alloted time.

Not sure if you can make it out on the image above, but it shows someone has eaten one of these monstrosities in 1min 43seconds. Insane.
Now. I say monstrosity, but what I MEAN is glorious creation. Because yes, I ate one too. But nowhere near that fast. We wen a few times in fact, and I also ate one of the chicken burgers and a pork burger, the Chief Wiggum. They were all epic.

 

[GarrettM]

And that pretty much brings an end to this report. We woke up one morning, dropped our little Yaris Hilton back at the airport, and hopped on our plane back to Melbourne, and then on home to Perth.
If you've read this far thanks. I hope you enjoyed it or got some value or ideas from our experience. It's fun to look back on it, and remember how easy it was to travel before BabyGM came along. But those days are gone now, and I wouldn't swap her to have them back anyway.

New Zealand treated us very well, and it's definitely a place I would like to go back to. Possibly not Christchurch though. Definitely Queenstown and Otago in general, as I would love to do some serious fishing. And also more of the north island would be good. The Coromandel and such also offers some serious fishing opportunities.

Next time!

 

[Major]

Thanks for posting. I have enjoyed your TR.

All the best for the coming birth

 

[get me outta here]

I think the baby is now around 1 year old? Things move along very fast in TR land.

Thanks GM, aws photos.

Thanks for posting. I have enjoyed your TR.

All the best for the coming birth