Time really does fly, we now had only two nights left in the van, and the end of our great antipodean adventure was looming. It wasn’t quite over yet though, so what was next?
Before leaving Twizel, we headed over to High Country Salmon for a late breakfast. This salmon farm produces excellent quality Chinook salmon, and consists of a floating cafe and visitor experience as well as a shop. You can feed the salmon in the netted pools outside the cafe, and the kids loved seeing the beautiful iridescent flashes as the fish zoom to the surface to catch the sinking food. You can also catch your own fish here, as long as you don’t mind buying it to take away with you. Although, after watching a Chinese tourist land herself a 2kg fish from a very well stocked holding tank after no more than 3 minutes, I did wonder why. She didn’t even net it, or kill it, or clean it, or fillet it. You know, all the parts of the process that are important to make you understand and respect the fact that you have hunted an animal in order to eat. I mean, I get it if you wanna guaranteed catch, or if you were going to purchase a whole salmon anyway then why not catch it yourself. But this is hardly fishing. The phrase “shooting fish in a barrel” immediately springs to mind. We didn’t want a whole salmon anyway, it wouldn’t fit in our tiny campervan fridge! We did, however, want to try it. The whole ethos here is “glacier to plate”, and the salmon certainly is fresh. And delicious. Kate had a small plate of freshly prepared sashimi, and I had a hot smoked salmon sandwich. It was obvious that there wasn’t a secret sashimi chef lurking behind the scenes, as the cuts weren’t exactly delicate or skilled, but the quality of the actual fish was evident. And the hot smoked version was delicious, although crudely presented and underseasoned. I think it was safe to say that as salmon producers they were at the top of their game, but Michelin chefs they were not.
All in all it was a pretty fun and tasty diversion for an hour before heading to our next stop for the night.
Tekapo is a small township only 45 minutes away from Twizel, and is situated on the shores of the drop dead gorgeous Lake Tekapo. They’re not short of a stunning lake or two around these parts, but this one was truly lovely. The pitch we had been allocated on the lake front campsite was apparently their best, and as we backed into the space you could see why. The rear window of our van framed the view of the lake and mountains perfectly. It was almost like somebody had hung a perfect, vibrant landscape painting on the rear wall of our van, and it was all we could do for five minutes to simply stare and really drink that view in.
Stunning natural beauty aside, we had come here to try out the famous Tekapo Hot Springs. We had tried many thermal hot pools all over the geothermal areas of the North Island, but these were not natural geothermal pools. There was no faint smell of egg hanging in the air, and there was no risk of brain-chomping amoebas should you put your head under the water. These pools were filled with the purest local glacier water which had been heated to a perfect bath-like temperature. It apparently started as a way to use up the excess heat generated by the operation of the on-site ice skating risk. But it quite quickly turned into the main attraction. And you can see why. Lying in not one, but three giant baths overlooking this incredible view is quite a way to spend the afternoon. The three pools are shaped like the three main local lakes, and vary in temperature from 36 to 38 degrees. There are also two cooler pools and a kids splash zone, which was a godsend for Hunter who always gets too hot in these places. He spent most of his time diving in the 27 degree plunge pool, showing off his skills to the bigger kids.
After a good three hour soak, we managed to drag our now jelly-like bodies out of the waters, and made our way to town to pick up some supplies for dinner, while marvelling at the enormous pine cones the local school kids were selling for charity! The kids had made some friends in the pool who happened to be staying in our campsite, and they took the opportunity to spend the afternoon hanging out in the play park as well as chilling in our van. I think they had been craving some interaction with friends their own age, and they really gelled with these guys.
Tekapo is actually in the middle of the largest dark sky reserve in the world at over a million acres of low to zero light pollution. So it seemed rude to not attempt a bit more stargazing while we were here. Most of the local tours were fully booked, but luckily there was some space still available with the stargazing tour that was being run at the hot pools we had enjoyed earlier. This involved a 45 minute tour of the night sky on their purpose built stargazing deck, followed by a 45 minute session in the hot pool, lying on floating hammocks in the darkness while a guide pointed out some of the features in the skies above. This sounded like a pretty dreamy way to spend the evening, so we signed up with the guarantee that we could cancel if the skies didn’t clear.
The weather was not looking promising as we moved into the evening, and as darkness fell there was not a single star visible above us. It was ironic really, that we were in one of the darkest places on the planet, and couldn’t actually see the sky. We didn’t want to tear the kids away from their friends unnecessarily, so we waited until the last minute to make the call. I even walked down there to speak to the guides half an hour before we had to leave, to get their thoughts on the evening. Amazingly it looked like there was a small window opening in the thick cloud cover, and I even managed to spot a newly launched stream of Starlink satellites closely bunched together as they shot through the night sky above me. I had never before seen them so tightly bunched following a recent launch, and there was a moment when I thought I’d witnessed something extraterrestrial. I actually took some shaky videos in true tabloid fashion to prove I wasn’t imagining it, should it have turned out to actually have been aliens landing in Tekapo!
We decided we would give the stargazing a go, as there were now stars regularly peeking out from behind the clouds, and we would probably regret it if we didn’t do it. So we wrenched Hunter and Bam away from the other kids, grabbed our togs and headed back to the hot springs for our introductory hot chocolate before the evening commenced.
The first half of the tour was spent on the stargazing deck, using the impressive computer guided telescopes to home in on certain celestial bodies, while listening to the information provided by our guide. Despite having to chase the stars around the intermittent clouds, we managed to view many distant solar systems and even witnessed a few shooting stars amid communal gasps from the 30 strong crowd.
The second part of the tour really was a perfect way to lose an hour as we floated almost silently in the toasty water under the suspiciously seedy glow of the myriad red lamps dotted around the pool. The skies had cleared enough to spot most features in the southern sky as the guide answered questions and directed our attention to certain areas in the heavens above. I could have stayed there all night, as could Kate, although the kids had taken to basking on the pool walls to cool down, like bizarre reverse reptiles cooling their blood in the moonlight. Before long our time was up, and we once again dragged ourselves out of the pools and walked shaky-legged back to our camper along the pitch black road. Once again it was pretty difficult to take pictures of this type of event due to the low lighting. The skies, however, opened up completely as we wandered home, and we seized the opportunity to snap a few pictures of the millions of stars piercing the darkness above the lake.
Breakfast the following day was taken overlooking the lake, drinking in the beauty of our surroundings one last time as the kids played and fed the ducks. Before long they said goodbye, and we left Lake Tekapo behind us.
We only had one last night to spend in the van on our way back to Christchurch. It really was approaching the end of our travels down under. After stopping for lunch in the charming town of Geraldine, we raided the police maintained public vegetable garden (what a brilliant idea) and made our way to our final campsite in the town of Rakaia. We stopped here as it was close to our final port of call, and we needed somewhere to knuckle down and get through a few days worth of school before the painstaking task of repacking all of our belongings which had been strewn all over the inside of our van over the last few weeks.
The following morning, after several hours of sorting, packing and cleaning, we drove to Christchurch for our final night in this glorious country we had all come to love over the past six weeks. I dropped Kate and the kids with the suitcases at the hotel before making my way over to the airport to return the van. We had covered just under 3000 kilometres in the old girl over the last two weeks, not bad going really.
Just time for a brief look around Christchurch that afternoon before a bit more school, much to the disapproval of Hunter and Bam.
That was it, we squeezed ourselves into a taxi in the morning and headed to the airport for our flight to Singapore. We had spent six weeks exploring New Zealand, falling in love with all her different aspects from the perfect beaches, otherworldly topography and spectacular scenery to the welcoming and laid back charm of its people and customs. It really is an intoxicating place, and we were sad to be leaving, but new adventures were looming in the great US of A. And besides, we still had three days to enjoy in Singapore on the way home.
KIA ORA AOTEAROA