Once we left Queenstown the next landmark we wanted to see was Mount Cook. A few weeks beforehand we had a frantic evening of booking hostels as a lot of them were fully booked, so we ended up staying in a hostel on a sheep station farm about an hour away. The hostel itself wasn’t too unbearable but there was an annoying amount of moths/mosquito around. When we drove to Mount Cook we drove past Lake Pukaki and stopped to take pictures, it was the most unrealistic shade of blue I have ever seen. There are quite a few different hikes to choose from at Mount Cook, we started with the Hooker Valley walk. Going over suspended bridges down some rocks, the walk was fairly easy and very scenic, although we were nearly being blown away by the wind. Once we returned back to the start we did another short walk to see the Tasman Glacier.
After another nights stay at the sheep station, we moved on and drove to Lake Tekapo. On the way we saw a sign for free salmon feeding, so we stopped at this salmon farm and fed the fish and took some funny photos. We weren’t actually too sure what we were going to be doing at Lake Tekapo, as in whether it would be a long hike or something like that. We arrived and Lake Tekapo has a small town with some cafes, and obviously the notable lake. We first had lunch by the lake, and then we drove up the nearby observatory to the “Astro Cafe” and had a coffee looking over the lake. We were toying with the idea of doing a stargazing tour that night, but the sky was full of clouds so we thought it would probably be a waste. Like I said earlier, when we was booking our accommodation we were finding very limited results, around this area too, so we ended up going for an Air Bnb. We arrived and to our surprise, the house was on ANOTHER farm…But luckily, the house was actually really modern, with lots of art work and the women who owned it was really friendly. We had a pleasant night stay there, and they had the cutest dog called Tuwee.
The next day it was time for our final stop of the South Island – Christchurch, but we couldn’t possibly leave without staying in yet another unorthodox hostel. This one was “Jail house accommodation”, which was a real prison used up until 1999 and then converted into a hostel. They have tried to keep it looking as close to what it used to, and each of the rooms are still in their own cells. Once we checked in we walked around Christchurch, we got a bit lost and thought there was nothing to find, but eventually after asking someone we found some shops and bars. That evening we went to this noodle festival we saw advertised in our hostel, which was in one of the parks. We didn’t know what it was going to be but it was actually really good, I’m not sure why it was called a noodle festival because there was loads of Asian food to pick from. We had some really tasty food and listened to the live music for a while before heading off. In the morning after checking out of Jail, we walked to a barber so I could get my hair cut. The barbers was very funky, it had a barista inside, a small arcade, and a basketball court. The barber told me that the place is one of the most popular barbers in south New Zealand, and apparently all of the All Blacks get their hair cut there. As if on queue, a guy walked in who apparently plays for them (I have very limited rugby knowledge so I’m not actually too sure, but he’s on the players list on their website), either way we got a picture with him. Before we left Christchurch there was one more thing we wanted to do and that was to visit the earthquake museum. It was really interesting to read and see about the earthquakes that hit New Zealand, and obviously very sad to hear the stories of people affected. Finally, we dropped off our car and took a flight back to Auckland, where we stayed one night in an airport hotel.
Lee Teivans Travel Blog 