Days 3, 4 and 5. Twizel, Mount Cook and the drive to Queenstown

On the morning of February 3, I stopped by a Christchurch supermarket and drove toward Lake Tekapo. The road impressed me immediately: very few cars and excellent pavement. For example, after leaving Christchurch that day I did not encounter a single pothole, unlike the roads we often have in Russia. During the drive, flat landscapes gradually turned into mountain scenery. The daily distances were not that large, somewhere between 100 and 500 km, but driving took much longer because every five minutes I wanted to stop and photograph the beauty around me. New Zealand has very good tourist infrastructure: every attraction has road signs telling you where to go and how many hours the walk will take. You end up wanting to visit every single one, but I strongly recommend preparing carefully and deciding in advance what you really want to see, because even a whole day would not be enough to cover every place. Some of those signs point to multi-day hikes.

When I reached Lake Tekapo, it was the first time I had seen such a beautiful lake with such an unusual water color.

I was so impressed that I spent almost the whole day there and had no time left for the other lake. In the village of Tekapo I had booked a helicopter flight, but it was canceled because of the weather. The sky was clear, but there were occasional strong gusts of wind, which was probably why the helicopters were not flying. If you go to New Zealand and want to have a great trip without spending too much money, I think a car is all you really need. Driving through the country alone is a pleasure.

That day I did part of a trail along Lake Tekapo and then continued to Lake Pukaki.

Once there, I decided to drive around its eastern side. There is a canal there connecting the two lakes, Tekapo and Pukaki.

After that I headed to my booked hotel in Twizel.

The next morning the weather let me down. A rain front was moving into the valley from the west, and there were strong gusts of wind. Before the rain started, I managed to visit the Pukaki dam and take several nice photos.

Then I drove toward Lake Tekapo, hoping the weather would be better there, but it was exactly the same. After wandering around for a while, I decided to try my luck in the Mount Cook valley. Unfortunately, it rained there all day as well, and I could not make it to Mueller Lake. Closer to evening, though, I was able to walk to Tasman Lake and admire the glacier. I also thoroughly enjoyed the views along the western shore of Lake Pukaki, where the weather turned out excellent after lunch even though it was still raining in the Mount Cook valley at the same time.

That sort of thing can happen there. So it is better to have a good weather app on your phone that shows the actual weather map. I used this app. It is convenient, and you can pin several towns to keep an eye on the forecast.

The next day, February 5, I tried my luck in the Mount Cook valley again. This time I managed to walk to Mueller Lake and Kea Point lookout.

In the end I got completely soaked on the way there and back. I had to dry off and change clothes in the car, luckily my suitcase was with me. To avoid getting sick, I turned the heater up to maximum, drank hot tea from my thermos, and drove on through Twizel toward Queenstown. On the way I drove along the canal running from Lake Pukaki to Lake Ohau.

Later I visited Lakes Hawea and Wanaka. After that I drove to Queenstown through a beautiful mountain pass via the town of Cardrona.

In the evening I reached the hotel, but the manager had already gone home. I found a note on the door saying they had waited for me but could not stay longer, and that my room keys were in a box. In New Zealand, people trust each other. In some hotels I never even saw the manager, just picked up the keys from a designated place and left them there again when checking out.

That evening the weather in Queenstown was chilly, and a strong wind was blowing from Lake Wakatipu. Since all the hotels there, and probably almost every room in them, have a view of the lake, the room was cold, though it could be slowly warmed up with two heaters. It was the only day of the whole trip when I had to heat my room.