Gypsying Around

Hey Everyone,
So after Wanaka we kind of just drove around with no aparent plan, and it shows by our travel itinerary.

We stayed at a place called Lindis Pass which was the site of an old hotel from the 1840's. It was also a free DOC campsite. Bonus!

En route we saw a sign for "Clay Cliffs Scenic Area." We ended up taking a walk in there and checking out, literally, some clay cliffs. They were really cool but there wasn't any info posted on them so I can't really tell you anything more. 

On an unrelated note Jared loves Kiwi fruit chocolate

From there we arrived in Twizel (pronounced Tw-eye-zel, not Twizzle as I learned). But I'll let Jared talk about that in the next blog because it's all about fishing and I wouldn't want to steal his thunder. 

Along the highway we stopped at Lake Pukaki. Like the canals at Twizel, the water is a beautiful turquoise blue. So pretty. Kind of like Hokitika Gorge, if you remember that blog. Here are some pics:

M. Cook in the background 

Beautiful reflection

We continued down the highway and stopped at another beautiful turquoise lake. This one is called Lake Tekapo. There is a little church right on the lake front called the Church of the Good Shepherd. It was erected in 1935 in honour of the pioneers that settled the area. 

We wanted crystal-clear weather for Mt. Cook so we waited a few days before making the journey up. In the meantime we drove out to Peel Forest to check out the nature. People we met on the HumpRidge told us it was 'lovely bush.' 

Another cute old church. 

Fantail!

A very big Totara tree, over 1000 years old

Acland Falls

We continued on towards Geraldine. Barker's brand of all sorts of food-stuffs is made around here, so I'm talking jams, chutneys, sauces, cordials, all that good stuff. We tried a whole bunch of it at the store front and picked up some jam, chutney and cordial. I also went in to the "Giant Jersey" to see the World's Largest Sweater. 

Pretty neat?

We were very close to Ashburton at that point so I convinced Jared that we should just drive a little farther. I wanted to check out Ashford Village, which is apparently the center of the world for spinning yarn. I was pretty excited. 

I will say that there was a lot of beautiful yarn there, and I did spend a lot of time touching it all and rubbing the really soft baby alpaca yarn against my face (when the store clerk wasn't looking). However, it is SO expensive here. I really thought when I came to NZ that the wool would be so cheap because aren't there something like 35 million sheep here? It was a bit of a let down in the price department. I think we have more affordable yarn in Canada. How crazy is that? New Zealand is just more expensive across the board so I really shouldn't be surprised. 

After that diversion we headed back down towards Mt. Cook. More on that in the next blog...

Until Next Time!