Visiting Mountain Lakes: Tekapo, Pukaki & Wanaka

Feb 23 - Feb 25:

It's been another busy week for us, with loads of driving and lots of pretty lake scenery! (And very little internet access). Here's a quick summary:

Lake Tekapo

Church of the Good Shepherd, Lake Tekapo

Barry mistakes a horse tie-up for a ballet bar at Lake Tekapo-oops!

 On Wednesday, we visited Lake Tekapo en route to our 2 night stay in the small town of Twizel. Lake Tekapo is a beautiful icy blue colored lake, surrounded by mountain scenery and tussocky hillsides.
 Looking over the lakefront is the tiny Church of the Good Shepherd, built in 1935. We hiked to the summit of Mt. John, and returned via the lakeside, a hike of about 3 hours length.  We soaked up the views even though it was drizzling rain and cloudy, and slurped up delicious mochaccinos from the coffee shop at the top.  There is an astronomy observatory at the summit run by the Earth and Sky company http://www.newzealandsky.com/earthandsky/index.html
- something you can visit at night to look at the stars.  Interestingly, this was one of the few walks we've done in NZ that wasn't crowded on the trails - a nice change.
 

An overcast day looking into Hooker Valley

On Thursday, we drove past Lake Pukaki on our way to Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park.  Our plan was to hike the very popular Hooker Valley Trail, which takes you along the valley floor and gives you good views of Mt. Cook peak.  The day was mainly overcast and windy, and we started our hike mid morning.  The trail was very busy, it seemed there were hundreds of people walking this trail that day.  Again we felt like we were one of the few Canadians here - most of the visitors were either British, German, or Asian, and age-wise, we are not the common demographic. Most visitors we've come across are either 15-20 years older or younger than us.

A spiky Golden Spaniard plant

Tasman Glacier & Tasman Lake - see those icebergs!

Amazing view from Tasman Glacier lookout

Overall the trail was more of a walk than a hike - very few gains in elevation, and it's a one way track so you retrace your steps back.  I think this walk is overrated in terms of views and variety of scenery.  Maybe it was because of the high clouds concealing the peaks at times, or the crowds, but the highlight was probably seeing the glaciers clinging to the sides of Mount Sefton and Mount Cook.

The Visitor Centre in the village is worth a look - great history of the mountaineering in the area, including artefacts from times past including the wooden slats they used as skis and the changes in camera technology over the years.
Another stop worth visiting are the Blue Lakes from the Tasman Valley Road (8 km of gravel road off the Mount Cook Road).  A 20 minute hike up gives you fantastic views of the Tasman River Valley and the Tasman Glacier, the largest glacier in New Zealand.  The Tasman Lake below it is full of icebergs, and a huge chunk of the glacier actually broke off during the earthquake in Christchurch - causing some large waves and scaring the heck out of the boat passengers visiting the glacier at the time!   (No one was hurt, by the way.)

That night as we ate our pizza at an outdoor cafe in Twizel, a family of Canucks happened to site down beside us.  The friendly dad told us they were from Humboldt, Saskatchewan, and had traveled to NZ for a wedding.  They were in the CBD of Christchurch when the quake hit, and were lucky the parking garage their rental car was in didn't collapse.  They basically just jumped in their car and fled out of the city like everyone else and ended up in this area.
 

Barry and Nat at the Wanaka Lake Lookout

Friday we left Twizel and drove another hour to Lake Wanaka.  Who knew this was such a happenin' town?  We think maybe they're competing with Queenstown to be the tourist attraction of the area.  Here's where we started to see people with money to burn - big holiday homes, fancier restaurants, nice cars.  The lake front area is full of restaurants and people out for a stroll.   After enjoying a sloppy beef burger and yes, fries again, later in the afternoon we set out for a quick hike to the Diamond Lake loop.  After a bit of a grunt up, we were lucky to get some late day sun and some fantastic views of the surrounding mountains, towards Mount Aspiring National Park to the northwest, and south to Lake Wanaka.  We heard and saw lots of birds in the forest canopy.   Wish we'd had more time in Wanaka, there were other hikes to nearby summits that would provide excellent views of the area.
Oh well, next day we were off to Te Anau via Arrowtown.

More Furry Seals and Dolphins too!

Mon., Feb 21 & Tues. Feb 22nd Cont'd:

Those brown blobs are all seals!

Fur seal babies playing in surf pools

After we went sea kayaking and were fully recovered, later in the afternoon we drove back north along the highway to a spot where you can see even more seals and a nice waterfall.  The area is called Ohau Point, and from the highway lookout you can see hundreds of fur seals below on the rocks and in the surf.  This is an active breeding colony, so we could see males, females and baby seals interacting in a pretty crowded area.  Took some video footage here, but don't have enough upload time to get it on the blog.  Sorry!

 

Ohau Waterfall

We stopped a little further and visited the Ohau Waterfall, accessible via a short 10 minute walk in from the highway pull-off area. Again, you walk through beautiful lush forest which brings you to a really pretty waterfall and pool below.  It's almost mystical in here, and for once, there weren't crowds of people sharing the same trail with us!  The information on the signs informed us that the Ohau Stream up to the waterfall is used by baby fur seals for shelter in the winter time while their mothers are feeding at sea.

The next day, Tuesday, we departed Kaikoura for Christchurch.  About half an hour south of Kaikoura, I was scanning the ocean for signs of whales, and suddenly saw what looked like large fish leaping out of the ocean.  Luckily there was a turnoff shortly ahead and we pulled off with some other cars.  Sure enough, they weren't fish - they appeared to be Hector's dolphins, a smaller dolphin found in this part of the world.  There were several large pods visible offshore, and with the help of the binoculars, we could see groups of them jumping and flipping over the water.  We watched them for 15 or 20 minutes or so, then moved on.  In a way, these dolphins delayed us from reaching downtown Christchurch for the earthquake, so thank you to the dolphins for being a distraction!!

Kayaking in Kaikoura

NZ fur seal relaxing on the rocks in Kaikoura

Monday, Feb. 21: If you're into marine wildlife viewing, Kaikoura is the place to be.  And to boot, it has dramatic surf and coastlines and mountain landscapes surrounding it.  Some of your choices for adventure in Kaikoura include: whale watching, dolphin watching/swimming; albatross watching; seal swimming and sea kayaking; and hiking.

This was a second location I could have gone swimming with dolphins, but alas, it was not meant to be. On Sunday afternoon when we enquired with Dolphin Encounters, they were fully booked for Monday except for 5:30am, and those that know me, know that would be impossible.  So, we did some more research, put ourselves on a waitlist for whale watching Monday morning, and by Monday morning, we decided whale watching was overpriced for seeing a couple whales ($145 NZD). There was also a good chance the boat could be rocky, not so great for Barry and potential seasickness. So...we went with sea kayaking to see some seals up close and personal with Kaikoura Kayaks.

Witnessed Mother Nature's Power

Thought we'd better update the blog tonight and let everybody know we are safe and sound in Timaru, around 2 hours south of Christchurch.  It's been a very long and stressful day after leaving Kaikoura.

You may now have heard about the Christchurch earthquake that hit today at around 1pm.  Barry and I were on our way into downtown Christchurch and missed being there for the big quake by about 20 minutes.  We thought our car had a flat tire when we were just outside Christchurch, but that was actually either the first quake or the aftershock we were feeling.  Barry could barely control the car as we were swayed left to right going 100km an hour on the highway!  It wasn't til we had pulled over and got out of the car and saw others doing the same that we realized it was a tremor.  Silly us, we thought tremors were normal around here.  Unfortunately, this was a shallow earthquake that caused much more devastation than the 7.2 magnitude quake they had in September.  So far, 65 people are confirmed dead and more are expected.  Others remain trapped in downtown buildings.  We are truly blessed to be safe tonight.  There are so many distressed people in Christchurch right now, everyone is talking about it and many have been affected by it.  Keep them in your thoughts.


Take care all, and be thankful if you don't live in an earthquake zone!
Nat and Barry

Abel Tasman Park

Saturday, Feb. 19:
 

Lots of interesting rock formations

Had a horrible night's sleep at Bella Vista last night after partyers a couple units over were talking loudly and drinking until 2am.  Which meant we decided to checkout and find somewhere else to stay.  Took the Discovery Day tour from Abel Tasman Sea Shuttle, for $72 each.  Ended up booking it at the Eden's Edge Backpackers lodge in Motueka on the way to Kaiteritiri beach.  Unfortunately Eden's Edge was booked for accommodation for that night, but she was more than willing to book the shuttle for us, as she gets 10% - very nice, talkative lady actually.  Turns out you can just book the various boat tours at the beach, but it was pretty busy when we got there.

Golden sand beaches, but cold water!

We enjoyed the cruise for the first hour or so, as the various bays along the coast are very pretty, with golden beaches, greeny blue water and rugged rainforest down to the shoreline.  The boat was pretty full.  The Sea Shuttle basically stopped in six bays to drop people off until we reached the top bay, Totaranui Bay. Then on the way back, we stopped again in a couple bays before dropping us off in Bark Bay at about 1:30pm.  There is a 6 km coast track hike south towards Torrent Bay, where we were scheduled for shuttle pick up at 4:45pm.  You could add on another 30 minute walk to the adjacent Anchorage Bay, if it was low tide, or another 90 minutes if high tide.  

Track between Bark Bay & Torrent Bay

The hike was enjoyable, again through lush forest including black beech trees (although it appeared to be quite dry while we were there) with peeks here and there at the luscious blue ocean.  Everything is so green here, not much color variation or flowers.  Also got to cross the Falls River swingbridge, not for the height-sensitive types (Mom you'd hate this!).  We arrived at Torrent Bay just after 3 pm, and decided we'd hitch a ride on the earlier boat back to Kaiteriteri at 3:45pm.  Alot of people got wet boarding the boat as some swells came into the bay just as we were wading in th water onto the gangway.  Headed back to Nelson to find accommodation, and stayed at the much quieter Amber Court Motor Lodge in Tahunanui near the Bella Vista.  The owner was a wise guy though, teasing us about our wimpiness on the roads here, telling me to go the local hardware store, buy some concrete to toughen up!!  The cheekiness!!

Tahunanui Beach at dusk, Nelson

Just wanted to add that the main beach in Nelson, Tahunanui Beach, is absolutely beautiful, and under-rated compared to the pebbly but golden Kaiteritiri beach by Abel Tasman park. It was right near our hotel in Tahunanui so we visited it in the evenings both nights.  The beach is almost flat, so at low tide, the sand seems to go on for miles, and the sand is soooo soft, with no rocks and a few shells.  This is a great swimming beach - unfortunately we ran out of time for that.