Category: New Zealand and Australia

We had another beautiful start to the day. Only a 2 hour drive today, so it was a leisurely morning. With clear blue skies and minimal clouds, we were on our way.

We had another view of Mt. Cook this morning.

Half way to the coast, we stopped at Lake Tekapo and had our lunch sitting on a bench at the side of the lake.

They also had unique public washrooms. The outside had an electric notice if it was occupied. As you entered, it told u how to lock the door and that you had a max of 10 minutes!

Onwards we went, stopping briefly in Fairlie for fuel and to buy a couple of their famous meat pies for supper. The store was packed!

Our stop for the night was a beautiful suite, complete with whirlpool tub! It was also much more reasonable in price compared to last night. Might have something to do with being on the east coast again. It’s definitely much more populated.

We’ll head south tomorrow to the town of Dunedin, our last stop before Queenstown.

Mt. Cook at over 12000’ elevation.

Saturday morning it was a bit cloudy and dull when started heading east.

However, the sun soon came out and we had blue skies and low 20s. We saw a couple of waterfalls from the road as well as some beautiful blue lakes.

It was a short drive for the day, about 3 1/2 hours plus stopping time, so we got to our motel in early afternoon. At check in, we talked with the lady there about what to do for the afternoon. She suggested a drive to see Mt. Cook, just over an hour away. She said if we had good visibility of the mountain when we stopped at a viewpoint half way there, we should definitely go the rest of the way. She said it was good road, fairly straight and it wouldn’t be dark before 9 pm or later.

So after a quick grocery run, off we went. It was an excellent viewing. We still had clear skies and fair temps.

Such beautiful colours – it is another glacial lake and reminded us of some we’ve seen in Alberta.

After a snack at the cafe in the village, we headed back to our motel for the night. Tomorrow we’ll reach the east coast again.