Literally!
We took the Scenic route towards Akaroa – and little did we know HOW scenic it could be! It was like the great Ocean Road all over again! Stopped at every possible, not too dangerous point to take a photograph, it was absolutely beautiful coastline, fishing villages, up, over and down mountains (- JUST up them in our little car!), cliffs, bays…. If we had done NEw Zealand before Australia we definitely wouldn’t of had the wow factor we had with the Great Ocean Road – as great as it was, it seemed that every road so far held the same incredible level of scenery!!
As we set out late due to shopping, and many many stops, the journey took a lot longer than expected and before we knew it we were driving up gravel paths just wide enough for our car, up hairpin roads cut into the side of a mountain with only a cliff edge to comfort you – in the dark!! This was pretty scary due to the gravel on the road, and drove the whole way never feeling like your car could so easily go off the edge of the mountain!! So we continued along that road, up down and along, and up and down again, to be greeted by 3 sheep in front of the car, that just didn’t seem to realise they could step aside, instead they preferred to run away, directly down the middle of the road we were driving down! This continued for a GOOD amount of time! Eventually near the bottom of the mountain the path widened and they veered off! Eventually we arrived at our campsite after a fantastic journey, however a little late….. The man wasn’t the happiest! But he showed us to our campsite where we had the fun of setting up a brand new tent in the pitch dark (and FREEZING cold!) with no prior experience!! Haha it was excellent fun and went surprisingly well. We cooked a bit of chicken and couscous with some nandos sauce in the kitchen at about midnight! (very inventively as we found you needed your own frying pan etc for campsites! We only had plates and sporks etc!) We were soon tucked into out sleeping bags, and it was to be the first of many many very cold nights!
The next morning it was sunny – which could only mean one bad thing – the tent had become an oven!! There was absolutely no air inside lol and so desperately got out asap! Interesting…. go to bed freezing and then run out in the morning barely dressed to get away from the heat!! Hopefully this wasn’t the norm! Met a really nice woman in the bathroom that was just finishing her travels around NZ and gave us lots of good advice on where to stay and what to see etc! We packed up the little car (full to bursting!!) and drove into town where we had a nice little wander, it was the only french settlement in New Zealand, and had kept lots of its French charm! Stocked up on water (the white water bottle had been lost in action somewhere unknown to us both) and headed towards Lake Tekapo, via a quick stop in Christchurch to pick up some walking boots! And cooking equipment!
Pictures will be online as soon as we’ve finished getting the Great Ocean Rd ones up! Got a little behind….!
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