NZ: Mount Cook to Lake Tekapo to Christchurch

I really want to finish writing about New Zealand so I can move on to more recent news.  Advanced warning - this one will be long!

January 6-9, 2012

Waking up in a hotel was a really nice luxury for this trip, but it didn't do anything to subside the horrible pain we both felt in our legs.  The storm had settled in over the mountain so we lost our beautiful view, but we were thankful we weren't waking up on top of the mountain as per the original plan.  We stayed in the room until our 10am checkout watching movies on TV, only to find that the breakfast buffet downstairs closed at 10:30am.  Finding breakfast elsewhere wasn't easy, so we settled on the "mountaineering breakfast" at the info centre and felt terribly sick from eating so much.

After a short drive, we arrived at Lake Tekapo where we booked an inTENTS campsite (joke courtesy of Ryan who wrote the notes for this day).  It was the first time in New Zealand that we got a numbered site, and it was really nice. 

As quickly as we could on very sore legs, we set up the tent then immediately went to the hot springs right next to the campsite.  I'm not even sure if they were real hot springs or just heated swimming pools, but we needed something to try and soothe our muscles.  The weather was perfect for it since it was sort of rainy and cool, so we had a very relaxing time even though it didn't help the legs at all.

We needed a day to relax, so when we got back to the campsite we just played board games and cooked a delicious dinner on the barbeques they provided.  The view was beautiful so we just took our time and finished off our bottle of wine.

That night was the first night we had rain, which was fine because we really couldn't move anyways.  By the next morning my body was definitely even more sore, so we had to take it easy again.  Since the campsite was so nice we decided to stay a second night, which left the entire day for us to walk the kilometre to the "town" and back.  We actually slept in until 10:30am, played board games until 1pm, then started the slow walk to town.

We knew we wanted to hang out in a pub, so we stopped at the one selling Radler (beer and lemonade, like we had in Germany).   We ordered 2 Radlers, a chicken salad, and some potato wedges, but unfortunately didn't have enough money on our travel card or cash to pay for them.  Ryan cancelled our order of wedges and we enjoyed our "last supper," which was, regrettably, not very filling.  Consequently, the beer went right to my head and I was a mess.  The town didn't have an ATM, so we were pretty much stuck with only $4.80 in coins and an afternoon to kill. 

Lucky for us, we stumbled by a mini-putt course on our walk home and I insisted we go in and play.  To pay we had to use our Australian card and pay service fees, but it was totally worth it.  It was by far the nicest course I have ever seen, even though it frustrated Ryan because there was no geometric logic to the course layout.  It was New Zealand themed, so each hole had a different story to tell.  About half-way through the game we had to create two new rules.  First was a 15 stroke maximum so Ryan could finally finish one of the holes, and for me we implemented the "hit it where it lies" rule since I kept hitting it off course (including into the parking lot).

In the end, the final score was Steph 97, Ryan 111...on a par 47 course.  Getting better….?  Happy, we stumbled home to eat and play more board games.

The next day, our last full day in New Zealand, we had granola bars for breakfast and did some final car/tent cleaning before packing up for the last time.  We had a fairly long drive to do all the way back to Christchurch, but the weather wasn't great and despite taking the scenic route, it was not that exciting.  We passed a bunch of towns with funny names (like Colgate), but we were a little delirious at that point and found everything funny.  Like this:

Ryan (navigating): "Glentunnel's next" <pause> "Well, we've got that to look forward to."

Steph: "Anything interesting there?"

Ryan: "Nope"

Seriously, we laughed for like 10 minutes after that.

Ryan felt really sick the whole way home, so when we arrived at the hotel in Christchurch at 12:00pm he had a nap while I organized our stuff and made lunch.  That afternoon we did our final errands of groceries, gas, and the bank, but then promptly went back to packing and sleeping.  One cool thing though was the "golden kiwis" we bought at the grocery store.  They were the only kiwis we bought the whole trip, and they were awesome!  I seriously regretted not buying them every day.

Our 3:30am wakeup came awfully early, but after an earthquake-free night we were ready to head back to Australia.  The flight was uneventful, other than having to frantically wash out our fuel bottle so they wouldn't take it away from us.  Customs went smoothly and we arrived safely in Adelaide that afternoon. 

I hope you have enjoyed reading this as much as I have enjoyed reliving it while writing about it.  New Zealand was a beautiful country, and I can't wait to see what the North Island has in store!