Picton, Abel Tasman National Park, Christchurch, Mount Cook. Days 7-10 of the trip

January 27 (Day 7). We woke up early and headed wherever the road would take us. I did not know where we would end up by evening or how much we would manage to see that day, and as it turned out, I had not studied the sights along that day's route in enough detail. The navigator said it would take many hours to get to Abel Tasman National Park, even though the distance was small. I had a feeling we were about to run into something I cannot stand: gravel road. Without getting ahead of myself, we drove from Nelson toward Abel Tasman.

On the way we stopped in Nelson. For the first time a large part of our route ran along the coast, and we kept finding beautiful beaches and looking for a place where Sveta could swim. A small digression: I had promised her she would be able to swim somewhere in New Zealand. We were traveling at the height of summer, and I did not think it would be so hard to find such a place. We checked several beaches and still could not find one that worked: in some places the wind was too strong, in others the water was cold. There were beaches where locals were swimming, but for us it was too cold. New Zealanders seem to handle cold a bit better than we do. Where we were freezing, they were perfectly comfortable.

We got closer and closer to Abel Tasman, only about 10 km left, and then it started. Gravel road, dust. We drove through places where it was obvious a rockslide had happened not long before. Those last 10 km probably took us 40 minutes. And then here it was, the park. But once we arrived and walked around a little, we realized we could not stay there, and the ranger confirmed it. The park had room only for a certain number of cars and guests, and all the available spots had been taken three or four days in advance. On top of that, there was a terrible, unbearable wind that would surely have made pitching a tent impossible. So we just walked around, took some photos, and drove back along that awful road. By then there was not much time left before sunset.

When we talked to the ranger, he told us where we could spend the night, and we drove there. We had already passed it earlier. It was a decent campground and probably more expensive than any other campground we used in New Zealand. But overall it was a good place. They put us right next to the kitchen, toilet, and shower building. There we cooked dinner and prepared for a cold night in the tent. That evening we also had a long discussion about how best to drive around the South Island: clockwise or counterclockwise. We had to weigh the pros and cons. There were not many of them, but we needed to understand the weather and what we could still manage to see before it changed. Basically, it looked like Mount Cook might get one good weather day in two days' time. We also had to remember that with left-hand traffic it is better to go clockwise, because then you drive along the outer side of the island and it is easier to stop at scenic viewpoints. And in that case the scenic part is usually the ocean. In the end we chose clockwise.

January 28 (Day 8). We got up very early because I wanted to make a long push to Christchurch, almost 400 km. Someone might say that is not far and you can drive it in half a day. But although we left at 6 a.m., we only reached Christchurch around 6 p.m. A cabin was waiting there, which I had booked that same morning without even leaving the tent. When you drive 400 km through such a beautiful country, you simply cannot go nonstop. You keep stopping to look at the views, take photos, walk 1-2 km away from the car, and of course cook and eat.

On the way we came across several beautiful views that reminded me of what I had seen on my previous trip. In part, this was the same road I used in 2015 to return to Christchurch for my flight back to Moscow.

We reached Christchurch fairly early, checked into the cabin, and started preparing for the next day. A huge Indian family moved into the neighboring cabin. They were shouting, rushing around, and at night they even had a feast outside, which kept Sveta awake. She promised that the next morning she would get up early and wake them up in return.

January 29 (Day 9). We woke up early, but the Indians who had been eating, drinking, and talking loudly the previous night were already almost ready to leave. As usual, we were slow: washing dishes, cooking porridge, packing our things, and we probably left about an hour after they did. Later we caught up with them on the road and overtook them.

That day we had to drive from Christchurch to Lake Pukaki. I wanted to spend the night in the nearby town of Twizel. I had already done this route in 2015, so this time I decided to vary it a little. We took a road that was a few kilometers longer than the one I had used two years earlier, but it ran closer to the mountains and had almost no traffic.

On the way we stopped at Lake Tekapo. The weather was already changing there, and the wind was strong. I had wanted to drive up to a place I had walked to on foot two years earlier, but the clouds got in the way of the views. Lakes Pukaki and Tekapo are best in clear, cloudless weather. That is when their water turns emerald blue; in overcast weather it loses that vivid color.

Then we set off toward Lake Pukaki, but on the radar I saw that bad weather had already reached that area. As it turned out, though, all of it was concentrated around Mount Cook. There it was a full battle of the elements. Around Twizel, on the other hand, the weather was lovely. We drove around the canal network where I had been two years earlier and then went into Twizel to find somewhere to stay. The only thing we found was a Holiday Park campsite for 36 NZD for the two of us, the tent, and the car. We cooked dinner, washed up, and went to bed so we could get up very early the next morning and head toward Mount Cook, which according to the forecast was finally supposed to reveal itself. On my previous trip I had stayed in Twizel for three days and still could not catch good enough weather to even see the summit up close. I only saw it from far away. On the first day, when I drove into Twizel, I saw Mount Cook in all its glory, but I did not reach it before sunset, so I planned to do it on the following days, and those days were rainy. In general, I realized that the weather in the Mount Cook valley changes all the time. Rain is common there, so seeing it in clear weather is rare.

January 30 (Day 10). That night we froze. It was the coldest night of the entire New Zealand trip, only +9 C. The previous day I had still been choosing where to stay: in Twizel or almost next to Mount Cook, where it was still raining and the forecast low for the night was only +6 C. We chose Twizel and in the end did not regret it. I think we would have been soaked through and frozen solid if we had stayed near Mount Cook.

We got up early, because from Twizel we had to drive back to Mount Cook, walk a 5 km track in and 5 km back, then return toward Twizel again and continue on to Dunedin. About 425 km in total. It was a very hard day, especially considering we also had to walk that much, roughly the same one-way distance we had done to Trolltunga in Norway, though without such steep climbs.

We packed up and set off. There were almost no people in the streets. We quietly left the campsite and drove toward Mount Cook, stopping in beautiful places to photograph it from a distance. The weather did not fail us: it was still cold, but the clouds had begun to break. In the morning the water in Lake Pukaki had not yet turned emerald, so we barely noticed it. Onward. We reached the parking area at the start of Hooker Valley Track, 5 km one way to the glacial lake at the foot of Mount Cook. We covered it fairly quickly, but on the way we started to freeze. It had been warm by the car while the sun was shining, but after a few hundred meters we entered the shadow of the mountains and it got cold fast. We had to wrap up.

Back in 2015 I had prepared badly for my trip and knew nothing about Hooker Valley Track. This time I had planned the route properly and understood that if the weather allowed it, we absolutely had to walk this trail. And the weather did allow it. In the next photo you can see the place I had wandered to out of ignorance on my first trip in 2015. That track is probably only 2-3 km long, but I still do not know what view it offers because I walked it in the rain. Two years earlier I had stood there, on the slope of the opposite mountain to the left.

Eventually we reached the end and started taking photos. The views were wonderful. The lake had muddy water, but chunks broken off from the glacier were floating in it.

There were not many people with us on the way in, and not many at the end of the route either. But on the way back crowds were coming toward us. Not everyone can get up as early as we did for a trail like this, but we were short on time.

We got back to the parking lot, got into the car, and drove back toward Twizel. On the way we stopped to photograph a beautiful road:

Right after that I realized I did not want to leave and persuaded Sveta to do one more trail, one I had walked two years earlier. It was a very short one, maybe around 500 meters, but uphill. So we drove there, climbed quickly, looked around, and yes, it was beautiful. When I had been there in 2015, everything had been in clouds.

The view back:

And here we finally tore ourselves away from all this beauty and headed toward Dunedin, though we still had not driven far enough to get there:

Then Lake Pukaki did not want to let us go and turned emerald. There was not a single cloud in the sky, so the lake had reached its most beautiful color.

After that we drove almost nonstop, because all our time had been spent in the Mount Cook valley. But on the way there was one marked point where, according to my notes, The Lord of the Rings had been filmed. We drove there and once again ended up on a gravel road. Worse, it was a waste of time because we hit a dead end and private property. So we had to turn around and drive back. I should note one downside of the Hyundai Getz we had rented: if you drive on dusty roads, somehow a very noticeable layer of dust appears in the trunk, and later you have to clean it all out.

Near Dunedin, on the coast, there is one place we could not miss, so we stopped at the Moeraki Boulders. These are large, round stones. Some of them look like fossilized dinosaur eggs, and a few of them are cracked open.

We reached Dunedin, checked into a cabin I had found earlier that morning in Twizel, and started preparing for sleep. As I walked a hundred meters to the shower, I suddenly realized how warm it was outside. It was the first and perhaps the last evening and night in New Zealand that actually felt warm.