Late Friday morning we left Queenstown to head to
Wanaka. A few people had told us Wanaka
was worth checking out and I am so glad that we talked to them. Wanaka was beautiful. The town is set alongside Lake Wanaka, which
is bordered by snowcapped mountains.
While we were in Queenstown we decided that aside from seeing penguins
(which was looking like it was unlikely) the only activity we still wanted to
do while we were in New Zealand was check out a glacier. I had read in our guidebook about a tour of
the Tasman Glacier which is near Mount Cook.
The Tasman Glacier is the largest glacier in New Zealand and Mount Cook
is the tallest mountain, so we figured both were things we couldn’t miss. We went into the i-Site visitor center in
Wanaka to see if we could book something for Saturday. The woman at the information desk wasn’t sure
if the glacier viewing season had started, but she gave the Glacier Explorers
company a call for us to find out.
Turned out there was a tour leaving the next afternoon at 2:00 p.m. from
Mount Cook Village, so we signed up.
We had parked the Ark II in a parking lot along the lake and
decided we would check out the town and maybe rent some bikes for the
afternoon. I used our GPS to find out
how long it would take to drive to Mount Cook the next day, because I really
wanted to stay in Wanaka for the night.
Lucky for us the drive to Mount Cook was only about 2.5 hours, so we
decided to stay in Wanaka to explore the quaint town a little further. Some other campervaners had referred us to
the Aspiring Holiday Park, which had free internet and was close to town, so we
decided that is where we would stay. As
we were sitting in the Ark II discussing our plan for the rest of the day/evening
we felt the campervan lurch forward and heard a bang. Someone ran into us. Someone ran into our parked campervan. I was startled but we were fine. I turned around to see a man getting out of
his car, he had pulled into the parking lot immediately behind us, and hit us. Charles jumped out of the Ark II and began
questioning the man driving the car.
After a few seconds we learned that the man who hit us was trying to
block the way out of the parking lot because the car parked next to us was
stolen. The man who hit us and a few
others had just located the vehicle and were trying to apprehend the
suspect. As we were standing there two
police cars pulled up and put the suspect into one of the vehicles. There was lots of commotion, a girl was in
the car and she was escorted away to one of the other cars in the parking
lot. The man who hit us gave us a card
and told us he was fully insured and would cover any damage. Another man, also involved in the hunt for
the stolen vehicle also gave us a card and explained they would cover any
damage. A few minutes later the police
drove off with the alleged car thief and we were left in the parking lot by
ourselves. What a strange afternoon.
Charles had inquired about bike rentals before the
interruption of the stolen car saga, so we went and paid for a night at the
holiday park and then went to rent our bicycles. The guys at the bike shop could hardly
believe it when we told them what had just happened – apparently things like
that don’t generally happen in Wanaka.
We took our mountain bikes and helmets and headed for the suggested
route around Lake Wanaka, to see where the lake outlet becomes the Clutha
River.
We had really big mountain bikes, I was a little overwhelmed
at first by the size of my bike and it was much heavier and larger than the
bike I ride in Houston. After a few
minutes of figuring out the gears and constantly reminding myself that the
front and rear brakes were opposite my bike at home I was feeling more
comfortable. We had a great time riding
around the lake, enjoying the mountain and lake views, and eventually getting
to the outlet that becomes the Clutha River.
I admit, I did have a bit of a wipeout and thankfully Charles even got a
picture for our friends and family at home:
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| Wipe Out! |
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| Biking Lake Wanaka |
The bike ride and Wanaka were one of my favorite things
about this trip. After our bike ride we
went back to the Ark II to hang out and enjoy the scenery. The sunset that evening was amazing, it
turned the snowcapped mountains a beautiful pink orange. Since our groceries were dwindling and we
were leaving in a few days we decided walking into town was the best plan for
dinner. It was a little over a mile from
the park into town, but we enjoyed getting to use our headlamps and spend some
time star gazing. There were plenty of
restaurant options in Wanaka, but after looking at a few menus in the window we
chose a spot called Water Bar. The food
was delicious – calamari salad with a chili citrus dressing and braised lamb
with polenta. Overall, Wanaka tops my list
of some of the favorite towns we visited.
If we ever get back to New Zealand I definitely want to spend more time
there.
Saturday morning we woke up early and headed to Aoraeki/Mount
Cook. It took us a couple of hours to
get there, but we didn’t mind because it was a gorgeous drive. As we neared Mount Cook we drove along LakePukaki, which is a beautiful blue green color because it is formed
by glacial melt. We checked in for our
trip at the Hermitage historic hotel in Mount Cook Village and had just enough
time to make sandwiches in the Ark II before we set out on the tour. When we gathered with the tour guides in the
lobby of the hotel we were pleasantly surprised to find that it was just us and
one other couple on the tour. The two guides,
Bede and Martin, loaded the four of us into the hotel van for a short drive
further into Mount Cook National Park.
From there we had to walk about 15 minutes to a lake that sits at the
base of the Tasman Glacier. Once at the
lake, Bede took the four of us out in a boat on the lake, which was 2 degrees
Celsius (which is about 35 degrees Farenheit). We each
stuck our hand in the water, about 8 seconds was long enough for me – it was
freezing!
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| Sunset over the mountains in Wanaka |
After a little bit of safety information Bede began the
informational part of the trip, he drove us around to the various icebergs
floating in the lake and taught us about the Tasman Glacier. While we were sitting closest to the glacier
enjoying the novelty of sitting at the edge of a glacier we heard a loud
crack. Bede told us it was the glacier
cracking and the rocks sitting on top falling down into the crack – it was so
cool! The trip with Glacier Explorers
was something we decided on really late in our trip, but it was definitely one
of the best things we did. Here are a
few of the amazing photos we took on the tour:
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| Charles and an ice berg |
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| Tasman Glacier |
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| Glacier Explorer's Tour of Tasman Glacier |
Martin recommended a hike to Charles while we were
walking back to the van. We had a couple
of hours until the sun would set so we decided to hike to Kea Point and see
what we could see. As we were walking
Charles and I heard the cracking of the hanging glaciers and were hoping to see
an avalanche. We turned a bend and could
see the hanging glaciers and we kept watching and hoping to see a large chunk
break off and tumble down the mountain.
We weren’t so lucky, but we did make it to Kea Point and got some great
pictures of the hanging glaciers. As we
were leaving we heard some more cracking, but couldn’t see the falling ice and
snow. It was getting late and I was
worried about getting back in time before dark.
So, I rushed us along with the argument that we could watch for hours
and not see any avalanches. Charles was
joking as we continued our hike back to the campervan and said he would make the glacier fall using Jedi
powers. He turned around and focused on the mountain and
waved his hand, and it happened!! We
couldn’t believe it we laughed and pointed and watched as the avalanche fell
down the mountain. Here are some photos:
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| Charles using the force |
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| Success. |
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| Amazement. |
The force is with us I guess.
We hiked back to Ark II and arrived just as the sun was
setting. As we were driving out of Mount
Cook National Park we saw this:
Our plan was to stay at a holiday park in Lake Tekapo that
night and then go to Christchurch the next morning to return the
campervan. We arrived at the holiday
park and were rather surprised by the unfriendly nature of the staff and the
high price of the tariff for the powered site.
But, we were tired and it was dark, so we went ahead and stayed. We found a place to park the campervan,
plugged in the power cord, and turned on the gas. We cooked one last meal in the campervan and
turned in for the night. The next
morning we opened the door to the Ark II to go to the bathrooms and were
greeted with a beautiful view of Lake Tekapo.
It was clear why this holiday park wasn’t focused on friendly service or
luxurious facilities, the view alone probably allows them to sell out every
day. It was a beautiful view of the lake
with the mountains beyond.
Unfortunately, we didn’t have much time to spend hanging out since it
was our last day in the Ark II. One last
time we went and washed our dishes in the kitchen, showered in the coin
operated showers, unplugged our campervan, turned off the gas, made sure the
bed was put away, all the drawers were locked, all loose items were put away,
and away we went.
We reached Christchurch a little earlier than we needed to
so we decided to stop at a park for a lunch.
I programmed a park into our GPS, which we endearingly referred to as
Simon at this point, and we drove along.
Unfortunately Simon was not telling us when we reached the park and so
we would pass it by and he would tell us to drive on to the Wilderness office
in Christchurch. Finally after the third
time of trying to program a destination, we just decided to stop alongside a
park in a neighborhood. There we had a
lunch of leftovers – one ham sandwich, crackers, cheese, and hummus. While we sat there we listened to the first
decent radio station we had heard in weeks and enjoyed our last few minutes
hanging out in our campervan.
About 20 minutes later we pulled into the Wilderness offices
and asked where we could find a place to refill our gas bottle for the
stove. We were sent down the road a ways
to run this last errand and then headed back to fill out paperwork. Once that was completed one of the guys at
Wilderness, Mike, offered to drop us at our hotel. Overall our experience with Wilderness was
fantastic! So, if you ever find yourself
needing to rent a campervan in New Zealand, I definitely recommend
Wilderness.
Mike dropped us off at the Merivale Manor Hotel and we
checked in. The room was huge and there
was free internet, we felt like we were living in the lap of luxury. We had our very own bathroom inside our room
and it had a shower! We were so
excited. Charles went for a run and I
decided to do a little writing. After a
couple hours of down time we walked down the street for dinner and reflected on
our time in New Zealand. We were both a
little sad to be leaving the next morning.
That night I set up the computer to upload the pictures from our trip to
our SmugMug account. You can find all
the pictures here.
About an hour before our alarm went off I felt the bed start
to shake, I realized it was an earthquake tremor, it only lasted a few seconds,
but it was unsettling. I whispered to
Charles when it finished and asked if he felt it, he said he had. The alarm went off around 6:45 and we woke up
for our 7:30 shuttle to the airport and said farewell to New Zealand.
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