Aoraki – 06 January 2008

Today was to be an uneventful travel day from Te Anau to Twizel. With our self cooked breakfast in our tummies, clean dishes in the drying rack, and our personal belongings loaded in the car we set out for a projected five and a half hours driving time trip. Now of course we knew we were not going to drive straight through. The first two hours we would be backtracking our way to Queenstown. An hour into it Hayley fell asleep, short morning she had, but it was okay because she had already seen the roadsides here, sort of. That is if she saw it on the way down while finishing up her journal entry a couple of days ago.
In Foxton, just east of Queenstown I woke Hayley up when we stopped to refuel the car. Not knowing the landscape and the size and distance between towns along our route I did not want any low fuel surprises. As we ventured into uncharted territory for us Hayley would stay awake the rest of the day.
Driving along the Kawarau River, another popular river to white-water raft in the Queenstown area, we were dazzled by the swimming pool blue-like waters of the river. When we reached a safe spot to pull over and take pictures we did. After two self-made photo stops along the river, including one where we scaled down dirt path and over rocks, we came along a marked lookout spot at the Roaring Meg Rapids. With numerous other tourists stopped here we had one take our picture in front of Roaring Meg. As we were about to leave we could hear a kayaker, without her kayak, screaming for help as she fought to swim toward a shoreline. Another kayaker on the embankment tried to throw her a rope, but that did not work as it pulled him into the water as well. As the troubled kayaker continued down river, the one pulled in swam back to shore and got his kayak. From our vantage point, he was able to catch up to her just as they went out of sight. We tried to make additional stops down river to see if there was anything we could do and help, however we could not gain access to the river in spots we thought they may have ended up. Several kilometers down river we managed to stop and get to a common finishing spot. After close to a half hour wait there we determined and hoped that they had stopped further up river. We are still worried and wish we knew how to find out if she is okay.
With a photo stop at the top of Lindis Pass we miscalculated the time to our targeted food stop in Tarras. It actually was more of a miscalculation of the size of Tarras, as the town pretty much consisted from what we could see of a Shell petrol station, a golf course and a war memorial. It seemed to be one building bigger than Bill, Wyoming. When we realized there was no more to the town we decided to continue on rather than turning around to get food. The downside of continuing on is it was nearly another hour before lunch now because of the missed stop. Wanting a sit-down meal we had to settle on a vineyard café in Omarama, as they were the only place with a sit-down option.
A half hour after lunch we arrived at the Lake Ruataniwha Homestay located in Twizel. Our hosts were out for a going away gathering and had left a note for us on the door apologizing for them not being there to greet us. This was okay with us because we were on a mission to drive another hour and get close with Mt. Cook/Aoraki tonight. The forecast is for rain tonight and tomorrow resulting in poor to no visibility of Mt. Cook’s/Aoraki’s peaks. We have already wrangled with the clouded peaks back when we went to Lake Matheson near the Fox Glacier Village, we did not want to do it again. With our homestay hosts not around we unpacked the car and moved along. Driving along Lake Pukaki to get there we stopped numerous times for some quick snapshots, each time playing with the different foreground elements we had to create various different looks with the same key subject. Reaching the base village we parked at the Sir Edmund Hilary Alpine Centre and took a twenty minute trek uphill along the Glencoe Track to the view point overlooking the village below. It also provided a spectacular, unobstructed view of Mt. Cook/Aoraki, along with a new set of foreground elements.
With clouds rolling over the mountain tops above us we felt satisfied with our shots and decided to head back to Twizel for dinner. Unsure of what we might find we kept our fingers crossed, since it was Sunday and nearly 9pm. We located the mall in the town centre and found a place called Shawty’s where we managed to get in right before closing time. Sitting outside we enjoyed the sounds of children playing on the playground and watched the sky slowly get darker.
With the sun finally going to bed about 10pm we returned to our Homestay for the evening, the rooms are among the bigger ones we’ve had here on tour in New Zealand. It is decorated in a light blue that gives me the sense of being in a seaside cottage or resort, not on a lake at the base of a mountain chain. Hayley loves the REAL towels here, but is not happy to report there are only two television channels. As it turns out, New Zealand only has three over-the-air channels, the rest are on satellite
For a day of driving we did a lot of physical activity hiking to capture our souvenir images of New Zealand. We are very proud to be able to bring these images back home and share them with you all.
Cheer to all,
Bob and Hayley