New Zealand: days 11 & 12 - Christchurch to Queenstown

I didn’t post yesterday for reasons, so today's post is a double.

We woke up yesterday morning in Christchurch to another delightful morning (of course it was - it was S's birthday!).  We got out the door right at check-out time of our airbnb and did a little shopping before we headed southwest out of town.  The bustle of the sprawl of Christchurch gave way to pastureland and so many little farmstands selling produce and eggs.  The pastures slowly headed uphill, and we stopped for lunch in a little town called Geraldine.  There was a lovely cafe, a decent gift shop, and a few places for kids to get their wiggles out.  S talked with her folks for a while before we kicked off for the last leg to our hotel in Fairlie.  Our hotel was simple but lovely, and after we settled in, I snoozed for half an hour or so.  Then, we collected our warm-weather gear and headed further into the hills to Lake Tekapo.  Tekapo is one of a handful of very long narrow lakes that are fed from glacier melt.  The town of Tekapo is a tourist destination, with a small assortment of shops and restaurants.  We spent some time at the lakeside before grabbing a delicious dinner at a Nepalese restaurant

 

After dinner and another stroll, we reported to the Tekapo Dark Sky Project, a project that promotes Dark Sky Reserves and astronomy in general.  Tekapo has a shop, dark-sky-experience, and cafe, but had booked a special experience - we boarded a small shuttle bus and rode up the backside of Mt. John to the observatory up there for a guided star experience.  The shuttle was outfitted with red headlights, so by the time we got to the top, our eyes were acclimated and we could immediately see the Milky Way stretched out overhead.  Our guide told us about some of the things that we could only see in the southern hemisphere - the Magellanic Clouds, how to find polar south (since there's no Polaris like in the north), and some Maori star stories.  I gasped when I recognized Maui's hook. The guides had telescopes set up to see parts of the sky in detail, but honestly all of that paled to just seeing the sky open and bright before us.  

We got home and all crawled into bed at around 11.30pm.  Too tired to blog.

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The next morning (1 Oct if you're keeping track), we barely made it out of our hotel at check in time, and on our way out of town we discovered an artist that we really love! Bought some prints...

Our route took us back through Tekapo and then further on to more of the finger lakes.  Lake Pukaki was next:

There were no facilities available here.  Just a large parking lot and a rocky lake shore.  It was packed with tourists (mostly from China).  So many cameras and tour buses.  Fortunately my zoom lens lets me create the illusion of solitude.  

We continued on up through the mountains and over a mountain pass, finally stopping for a longer break in Wanaka.  We had a lovely healthy lunch, and when H was done eating, she sat very still hoping that the sparrows would come and munch on her leftovers.  They did not disappoint:

Wanaka felt like a ski town, with bright sun, crisp air, hordes of tourists, and a combination of high-end clothing shops and cheap souvenir shops.  The lake, though, was lovely.  Lake Wanaka is one of that series of finger lakes like Pukaki and Tekapo, so it was fed by distant mountains.  Beautiful.

It was mid-afternoon when we hit the road, stopping shortly out of Wanaka in Cardrona at the legendary Cardrona Hotel.  It has a lovely beer garden that was packed with families enjoying a beer on a lovely spring day.  Sadly, that was not in the cards for us.  The three of us ran into a severe case of ALL WANTING DIFFERENT THINGS so we ended up leaving abruptly with no one happy.  That's the definition of compromise, right?

a distressed Tesla supercharger.

From Cardrona, our last leg was straight into Queenstown. Well, not straight.  It was windy, with lots of switchbacks, and a dozen hairpins at the end that had S whiteknuckling her palms.  BUT we made it safe and sound to our airbnb in Queenstown, where we settled in for a few minutes before heading out to find dinner. 

Queenstown is jammed full of tourists and uncomfortably so.  We tried to go for burgers but it was packed.  Then we tried for an italian restaurant but they could only sit us outside. We ended up settling for conveyor belt sushi at a restaurant that stopped running their conveyor belt.  Lame!

Now we're back at the airbnb and trying to set up reservations for stuff to do for the next few days.  And catching up on sleep!