Noel went out first thing and came back with 2 coffees and bacon&egg sandwiches. 🙂 After checking-out we went into ‘town’ and on the way passed the Cessna 206 floatplane on Lake Te Anau.

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There was also a glass-walled chapel near the lake, rather weird to look at!

We stopped in Mossburn trying to find the pie place which had been recommended but failed so instead we had a coffee and a savoury slice.

Low cloud hovering above a river.

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The cloud looked full of rain but none fell.

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The view towards Queenstown of Lake Wakatipu.

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Getting nearer to Queenstown.

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We carried on past Queenstown towards Cromwell and passed the AJ Hackett Kawarau Bungy Centre, the location of the world’s first commercial bungy jump. I did a bungy jump there 10 years ago. And the only reason I did one was that (it’s a small world) I had bumped into Bob Gibson and his wife (from my UK flying club) in Franz Josef of all places and he had said he had done one and was I going to?! o_O

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This is a great time of year to travel around the Otago region as the autumnal colours of the trees are outstanding.

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At Cromwell we bought a sandwich and coffee while refuelling the car. On again through the Lindis Pass.

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There were lots of trees like this beside the river. At one point we were above them and the colour and petals were so delicate it actually looked like clouds of yellow leaves – a very strange and pretty effect.

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We saw some pretty stupid driving. There are a lot of accidents here but the emphasis seems to be on speed and also drink-driving. The attitudes of some drivers need changing too! Really bad tail-gating and pulling out to have a look into the path of oncoming vehicles, because they couldn’t see past the lorry in front because they were tail-gating! Overtaking with oncoming bends they can’t see around. Having to pull in suddenly while overtaking causing others to brake.

Past Omarama, this time without stopping to go gliding. This picture has the hill which we glided beside. Omarama airfield is to the left but can’t be seen.

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Through Twizel and we could see the mountains being obscured by the bad weather approaching from the west.

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Shortly after Twizel we went past Pukaki airfield advertising biplane flights and we saw a red biplane, ZK-CAT, one of only three Ag-Cats in NZ. It wasn’t the prettiest plane but looked fun!

We stopped briefly at Lake Pukaki from where we should have been able to see Mount Cook. 🙄

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Then we carried on towards Lake Tekapo.

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When we got to Tekapo we rang a motel which we had found online for one price and given the time of day we hoped they might do a deal. They wouldn’t, but worse was that their phone price was more expensive and they wouldn’t give us their online price in person or on the phone. So we had to go online and book then walk from the car in their car park to check-in! It’s not the first time where a place would rather we walked away than secure the booking over the phone for the web price!

We went for a walk by the lake. Noel with the Church of the Good Shepherd in the background and snow on the hills.

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View north-east from Tekapo.

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View north up Lake Tekapo.

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🙂

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This is Noel before we had a very nice hot chocolate, beside a warning as to what he’ll look like after it! 🙂

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A bit later we went out and had a very nice Thai Curry.

The weather forecast for tomorrow is for snow on the hills and on the Lindis Pass which we drove through today!