Monday - Lake Tekapo and Queenstown

Mackenzie basin cloud cover

This morning the skies over the Mackenzie Basin were covered with clouds, proving that the weather in New Zealand can change just as drastically as that in Cincinnati.  Fortunately, today was a transit day for us: nothing on the schedule that might be hampered by a little wind and rain.

Breakfast at Run 77

Our lazy morning started with a hearty breakfast at Run 77. Michael had Eggs Benedict a la Kiwi: a poached egg with New Zealand ham on ciabatta. Nancy decided to go British with baked beans on toast—definitely a stick-to-the-ribs type of meal.

Trail along Lake Tekapo

After breakfast we did some exploring on foot along the shore of the lake, crossing a canal to visit the Church of the Good Shepherd. The interior is just as picturesque as the exterior, because the wall at the front of the chancel--where one would normally expect to find organ pipes or a large crucifix—contains a huge window affording congregants a beautiful view of the lake. Michael thinks he would have a hard time concentrating on a sermon with such a natural distraction for the wandering mind.

Church of the Good Shepherd

Monument to the sheep dog

Adjacent to the church is a monument to the collie, a vital worker in an important local industry. Thousands of sheep graze on the tussock-covered hills around Lake Tekapo during the summer months, and herding them into winter pastures would be impossible without good sheepdogs. Along with tourism, wool and lamb production form the foundation of New Zealand’s economy, so we’ve seen sheep everywhere we’ve gone. (Nancy read somewhere that there are seven sheep in New Zealand for every human resident.) They aren’t native to these islands, but were introduced by the Europeans who came in the late 1700s. Raising sheep here was a brilliant idea because New Zealand has no predators capable of taking one down (although a few species of big birds have been known to attack them), so the industry has flourished. Dairy farming is also big here; we’ve seen lots of cows from our motorcoach windows.

Mount John, home of the observatory

The wind was getting too chilly for pleasant walking, but since we had already checked out of the Scenic Resort, we went back to the café where we had eaten breakfast to take advantage of the free wifi for a while before boarding a bus for Queenstown. We continue to be impressed with the ability of Kiwi bus drivers to navigate these big motorcoaches over narrow, winding roads.

Motorcoach

Queenstown, located at the foot of the Remarkables Range on another impossibly turquoise lake, has a lot in common with Aspen, Colorado: it definitely is a ski resort, but it also has a life beyond skiing. The lake offers opportunities for boating and fishing (and swimming for the hardy); there are several good hiking and mountain-biking trails, bungee-jumping and hang-gliding for the adventurous; and a lot of upscale boutiques, art galleries, hotels, bars, and restaurants for the affluent.

The bus deposited us in the middle of town late in the afternoon. We had left the chilly, damp wind somewhere along the road because when we arrived in Queenstown, it was sunny and pleasant. We had to hurry to the Ultimate Hikes outfitting center a few blocks away before it closed so we could attend an orientation for the three-day “tramp” we were about to embark on. A group orientation had been held earlier, while we were in transit, so we got our own personalized, to-the-point overview and were spared the marketing presentation.

Copthorne Lakefront Hotel

We also picked up some essential tramping gear from the outfitter: a forty-liter backpack (with a waterproof plastic liner), a sleeping bag liner, a raincoat, and a laminated trail guide and day-by-day schedule. When we told the Ultimate Hikes staff that we were planning to hoof it from there to our hotel—according to our map, less than a mile away--they looked at us as if we were crazy. True, we each had a big roller bag, a duffle bag, and now a backpack, but we’d done this before—and we were about to fill those packs and carry them into the mountains, weren’t we? What we didn’t realize, because the map didn’t show it, was that the mile between the Ultimate Hikes office and the Copthorne Lakefront Hotel was up a very steep incline. Someone called a taxi for us, and when we saw the hill, we were grateful that they had.

After dumping all our stuff in our room at the Copthorne (a modern, multistory hotel that also was hosting a convention of medical researchers that night), we headed back to the center of town (on foot, unencumbered) to find something to eat. 

Dinner at Brazz

The folks at Ultimate Hikes had recommended a bistro called Brazz, where we shared a pizza with pepperoni, peppers, and mushrooms on one half, and chicken with brie and cranberry sauce on the other. We’d never tried cranberry sauce on a pizza before, but it was delicious! So was the gelato we got at Patagonia, a shop on the wharf that our server at Brazz had recommended.

After dinner we went looking for a bakery that would open by 6 a.m. so we would be able to pick up something for breakfast before reporting to the Ultimate Hikes center. Once we found one, we headed back to the hotel to finish packing our gear and get a full night’s rest before beginning our “ultimate” hiking adventure.