Well I suppose ye'll be expecting a post sometime soon. Hadn't realized it had been so long since the last. But I'm not really in the form to write one at the minute. Again I've done quite a lot since the last time I wrote. Which is odd cause before I wrote the last blog we had no idea what we were going to do for the past days.
Well we managed to find things to occupy ourselves...
We left Christchurch last Friday week and set course for Mackenzie country, not quite knowing exactly what it was. Only that there was mountains and lakes involved (as per usual). We decided to forsake the boring coast road and went for the inland scenic route. Which wasn't really very scenic. Well there was some highlights like a lake the name of which i can't remember, it was near Mt. Olympus.* It was pretty nice, unfortunately it was like an hour drive to get there. Local authorities in attempt to gain more tourism have resorted to some unscrupulous methods. Signpost reads : Lake Coleridge Town 24km, Lake Coleridge 26km. So we figured, hey that might be nice. And it's only 26km away. So we veered off the main and down country roads that almost match the quality of Irish ones. After a half hour, signpost reads : Lake Coleridge Town 2km, Lake Coleridge 4km. A half hour later, there's still no sign of the lake. At some point another sign post appears. Lake Coleridge 4km. We did eventually find it, a nice lake. Surrounded by craggy mountains and we were greeted by hundreds of sheep hanging around it's shores. And one unfortunate sheep floating in it.
So after this 'brief" detour we headed on again to Lake Tekapo and Mackenzie country. Mackenzie country is awesome. Its a vast flat plain, dotted with some small hills, surrounded on all sides by mountains. The impressive snow covered southern alps to the west, north and south and a smaller very nice but not quite as impressive range to the east.
Lake Teakapo lies near the edge of the mountains. It's a amazing shade of blue, it looks unreal. Green almost, a colour from a painters palette rather than life. We stayed here for one night then went on to Mt.Cook. New Zealand's highest mountain. And couldn't see anything other than a shroud of clouds. It's very odd to think that you're not very far from something over 12,000 ft tall and you can't see ANY of it. So we left here rather swiftly and headed back for the coast. Staying in a little place called Otemata on the way. In the creepiest place I have ever stayed. The main hostel was one long corridor of about 50 rooms, for decor think the Shining if the hotel had been a bit of a shit hole. Definitely from the same time period anyway. AND we were the only ones staying there. The whole place creaked and some of the doors swung lightly on their hinges all the time...
Anyway from here we headed down for The Catlins. A place quite like Ireland. Rugged coastline and rough sea etc. We went to the southern most part of New Zealand and the very cool Lost Gypsy Gallery. A gallery based in an old bus. With many strange wind up inventions(the pleasant nose pincher), very like Wallace and Gromit. When you walk in the door a little train sets off on a track all around the shop. Then there's the winding theater of thoughts. An area of much larger wind up inventions. I can't really do the place justice. Take a look at the pictures on facebook.
Right that's all I can manage for now, I'll try and do you a better one tomorrow, maybe.
