It was time to sadly say goodbye to Queenstown and also Steve, Charlie, Rachel, Beth, Annabel, Anouska and Alejandra. We were down to the final 4. Travelling can be the most rewarding experience but also can be heartbreaking as you form close friendships with people then the next week they could be gone. Life on the road is never easy despite what a social media post can suggest. However, everyone is only a short drive or flight away, it’s a small World.
I sat next to my travel wife James as usual on the coach heading out. We stopped at the crystal blue lake Pukaki. You can see Mount Cook in the background on a clear day which is the highest mountain in New Zealand. I took a couple of pictures with my wifey in the titanic pose on the rocks which was hilarious and touching; memorable times! We moved on to Tekapo where we first stopped at the Church Of The Good Sheppard. One of the most photographed churches in the south island, it has become iconic for incredible night skies shots amongst backpackers and it has a real calm, still beauty to it. Well that’s when it doesn’t have 4 coach loads of tourists around it. The lakeside town has become popular for second homebuyers from Auckland and Christchurch creating a property boom increasing the average value of real estate to $800,000 in the idyllic location. We briefly looked around the church and inside but were not allowed to take any photos.
We stopped at the Lake Front lodge Backpackers. An Alpine style lodge surrounded by pine trees and wild rabbits that were allowed to roam anywhere. We upgraded to Glamping for $33 a night on check in. I had to distract two clumsy looking English Bulldogs who were after our food bags. The male didn’t take the hint first time around in persistence of getting a free snack and continued to rummage. I lifted the chubby fluff ball up in the air (he weighed a fair bit) before plunking him down once help arrived. The tents were vast inside fitting 5 single beds and had a homely feel to it. There was a dream catcher hanging down the middle column which unfortunately didn’t capture the lottery numbers for me.
After grabbing our towels and flip flops we walked down to the shore line of the lake. Two glaciers fed into the lake and James’s reaction said everything I needed to know. This was my final opportunity to go in a lake so I was going to grasp it no matter what. There were a handful of people sun bathing on the banks but no one was in the water. Ok I said to myself ‘1,2,3” I took two steps in and dived backwards. The numbingly cold water was beyond what I had experienced before. I let out a sigh as my body immediately went into shutdown. I tried to freestyle swim to keep my body temperature warm but it did little to nothing at all. James briefly joined me before taking the sensible option.
I decided to swim further out to try and adapt to the bitter coldness. I reached about 80m out taking in the stunning backdrop of mountains before all of a sudden I couldn’t feel my feet. I needed to get back in quickly realizing that I could possibly drown being this far out. I managed to get 10m away from the embankment before my legs went completely numb and my arms did the rest of the work. I stumbled over the pebbles before crashing onto my towel hoping my legs would wake up again soon. I went back in to see Talli’s priceless reaction as she took the plunge. After being called absolutely mad, she was to join the crazy bunch in taking a dip.
With a couple of hours of sunlight left, we walked on the trail heading up to the Mount John Observatory. We had reached a point where it visibly looked closer to go off the path up the steep hillside to the top rather than continue on the allotted 45-minute walk. Decision made we went for it thinking it would take 10 minutes maximum. After getting out of breath several times reaching five false summits, 50 minutes later we got to where we wanted to be.
We were greeted by clear skies over an extraordinary view which is one of the best I have seen in my entire life. We did some count down photos at the top to celebrate; Kathryn set her camera going before jumping onto James’s shoulders comically. The jumping photos were even more of a treat. I nearly started rolling back down the hill; James had an interesting looking star jump going on while Talli and Kathryn looked as if they had perfected their craft over the thousands of Kiwi photos they had taken. We continued onto the jagged rocks at the end of the cliff to get a 360 panoramic view of Tekapo and found a bench nailed into the rocks. Call it cliché but we did take a group photo of our friendship bracelets (like the school days) which I am still wearing now as I type.
Later that evening the forecast was for cloud cover, however typical of New Zealand weather it did the opposite and we had a clear view of the night sky where you could see the outline of the Milky Way. We hiked back up to the observatory hugged in blankets with two flashlights between us all and sat up there until the early hours watching the shooting stars. Kathryn took some amazing timeframe shots that turned out really well capturing the moment perfectly. On the decent back down I realized the hole in my pocket had enlarged with my room key dropping right out in the darkness. I sat at the back of the coach like a naughty school buy but of driver was fantastic and managed to get me out of it, thanks mate!
