Wanaka town is also situated right by the lake and I really liked it. The weather was great and all the people were by the water, enjoying the sun, having picnic or playing with the kids. If are not keen on just lying there are pathways that lead to the next town and all the time you are walking by the lake. The holiday park we chose was also right by the lake and each space had a view. They also had a small beach and you could go fishing if you feel like it. It was the first time we slept in our tent in New Zealand and we were quite surprised that at 9pm we could not hear a single sound - there was no music, no singing not even people chatting, just the rabbits jumping around the tent
Lake Wanaka
Next on the agenda was visit to 'Aoraki Mt Cook National Park'. It is home to the highest mountains and longest glaciers in New Zealand. According to the legend, Aoraki and his three brothers we sons of Rakinui (The Sky Father). While in the sea, their canoe overturned on a reef. When the brothers climbed on top of their canoe the freezing wind turned them into stone. The canoe became the south island and the Aoraki and his brothers became the peaks of the Southern Alps.
The track that the girl in the info center recommended was called 'Hooker Valley Track'. It was really nice and easy walk up the glacier valley and the end point is the glacier itself. The surroundings were awesome and as we were walking we could hear some cracking noised and falling avalanches, some pretty ominous sounds reminding us how quickly the ice was melting
After the glacier another lake was on the agenda - lake Tekapo. The camping was full as most of the tourists were from France and Germany and we were the only Bulgarians as usual :) There was a SPA right by the holiday park but it was closed by the time we got there so i could not check if the water was mineral or not. The town by the camping was really small - about 400 people were living there and there was nothing that interesting to be seen. They had a a 'historical' church and a statue of a shepherd dog. I put 'historical' in semi columns as it was built in 1935. The interesting thing is that he builders were instructed that the builders of the Church were instructed that the site was to be left undisturbed, and that even the matagouri bushes surrounding the building were to remain. Rocks which happened to be on the wall lines were not to be removed. The stones for the wall were to be procured within a radius of 5 miles of the site, and were to be in their natural condition
The road to Picton passed through Cristchurch, a city almost destroyed by an earthquake a few years ago. Now most of the buildings in downtown are in a process of re-building and the feeling is like in a construction field. Unfortunately most of the people have moved out of the city fearing another earthquake and now the city is not that alive as it used to be. We walked around quite quickly as the vibe of the city was quite painful and i did not feel very nice there. The idea was to find a place to sleep somewhere in Cristchurch but we decided to drive for about 100km more and find something on the way. A holiday park in Cheviot caught our attention with its prices and services - they had free wi-fi - so we parked our red beast and went for a walk. The walk was pretty short as the town had about 20 houses and all the people were inside watching TV and we were the only people on the street. There were not even cars passing by - we felt like in a zombie movie.Luckily no zombies appeared so on the next day we could return the car and take the ferry to the capital of New Zealand
No comments:
Post a Comment