traveling south

Hello. This blog was written 2 nights ago from somewhere in the middle of the south island of NZ. It's getting more and more challenging to find good internet connections and I don't currently have access to my email addresses...long story. So please check the blog whenever you feel like it because I'm just going to post stuff without telling you about it until I get back to more consistent service. I also am going to be hard pressed to include pictures every time but I'll do my best!!!

We left Christchurch this morning and drove south/southwest into the southern alps of NZ. Today we covered the most number of kilometers in the car as we will on any other day of this trip and I reckon (Australian word, not Texan) that we did quite a good job at it. We stopped every 1-2 hours to get out and play. First stop was a town called Geraldine where there were quite a few tourists and quite a few tourist shops to attract the many tourists. We ate our lunch in the shade as it was close to 30°C there (Mark says to double that number and add 30 and you’ll have approximate Fahrenheit.) We ran the kids around and got back in the car.

Next we drove through some country that I really enjoy looking at—it’s that rolling farm land where the squares of farming property cover hills like blankets, each with rows of different hues and at different angles. Some of the squares that didn’t have rows were dotted with white sheep. It looked like what I picture when someone mentions Ireland or Italy. But not having been there, I don’t know if that is a good comparison or not, it’s just the one I have!

As we continued on, the mountains started getting bigger and more impressive. We arrived at Lake Tekapo where we got out to climb on rocks. I wonder about the glacial color of the water. I would like someone to tell me how that works—why is the water that comes from glaciers gemstone blue when the water that comes from snow melt or rain is darker? That water is hard to stop looking at.

But we walked away from that lake and drove another half hour or so to another lake that was several times bigger and just as blue. And this lake was crowned with snow-capped mountains which is where we were headed. We spent time at the shores of this lake—Lake Putaki—because it was the kind of scene that one doesn’t want to leave lest it begin to fade from memory upon departure. For a lake, it boasted some impressive waves that splashed up on the rocks. The colors of the glacial blue water fringed with white broken waves at the shore were some to hold onto. Gabe made up an elaborate football game where he was the quarterback, the rocks were the football(s) and the waves were his opponents. He said something about being sacked if the waves lapped at his feet before he threw the “ball”. He could have stayed there for days.

Jordan was busy climbing on the rocks a few feet inland and finding places for her new stuffed lamb to sit with her on the rocks. Mark and I stole a few minutes to talk. We were all very happy.

We left there and I know that that will be one of those places that won’t stay fresh in my mind forever though while I was there I was trying to figure out a way to make that happen. But we moved forward into the next moment, letting go of the last as that is life.

We drove up toward the snow-capped, craggy mountains which remind me some of Alaska the way the mountains stick right up out of the earth. They don’t, like in Colorado, rise slowly from sea level in Kansas to 5000 feet in Denver to 9000 feet in mountain towns to 14,000 feet at the peaks. These mountains start at near sea level (2200 feet) and shoot up to 12,000. And it is all right there to see in one frame.

While we were eating in the café with a wall of windows looking out at Mt. Cook, the clouds lifted from the top of the peak and half the restaurant moved over to the window with their cameras to capture the moment. It seemed as though getting a clear view of the peak is rare enough to interrupt dinner for so I am grateful that from that moment until we left the village of Mt. Cook, we had a full view of the top of that mountain. Some of you probably know what I’m talking about when you can see that a mountain has a personality of its own. Mt. Cook is one of those mountains. I felt sad to leave it behind.

After dinner, we went on a wee hike on a track to a lookout point that the kids powered up. When we got back down after that hike, they were all psyched to climb Mt. Cook next. We explained that we’d probably have to come back in a few years to do that and I got really excited to think of the possibility of doing exactly that. Who knows!

We loaded ourselves in the car one last time for today and drove about an hour south to our hotel in a town called Omarama. I’m not sure what the town is like but you should see this hotel room. It’s huge and the kids have their own room! Too bad we’re leaving tomorrow morning bound for Dunedin where we’ll stay for 3 nights. Boy, I just can’t seem to complain without sounding ridiculous so I’ll stop.

Oh, we found out that sending all those pictures on yesterday’s blog was a bad idea financially. I thought I was saving some by not spending time rotating that one picture but what I didn’t know was that they weren’t just charging us for time online, they also charged us for size of data sent and received. Our bill was not a wee one. So I’ll have to find another way to send pix. Our hotel tonight doesn’t have internet access so I’ll have to send this sometime down the way. Until then!

I ran out of time to do more pictures so we'll see if I can get some more to you next time...
Love, Nancy