we left christchurch behind at about 9am, expecting a six hour drive to queenstown. alf got first crack at taking the wheel, and through peak hour traffic did pretty well, the first leg would take us from our hotel to lake coleridge, just near mt. hutt, where we were hoping to take some good photos. it didn't take long for the mountains to come into view as we made our way onto the highway. along the way, a sparrow flew straight into the windscreen, it didn't cause any damage (which would've been good, cos our insurance would've covered it 
). when we got to the turn off for lake coleridge, all seemed to be going well, until we missed a turn and ended up on a gravel road. we must've wasted twenty minutes or so driving along there. we drove back, and saw a sign that had two lake coleridge arrows on it, we obviously took the wrong one. it wasn't that special anyway, but would've been good if we actually found it after wasting that time.
from there, i took the wheel, and we headed to geraldine, stopping briefly at rakaia gorge for a couple snaps. we moved on without incident really (apart from some silly gear shifts ), stopping for lunch in geraldine, then continuing on.
alf took over from geraldine, as we headed for lake tekapo, near mt. cook. we stopped at lake tekapo, which was a very picturesque location. panoramic views of the mountains to the front and right of the lake, and a little church at the entrance. we probably spent close to an hour there testing out the equipment before finally moving on.
alf continued on to omarama, along the way we passed lake pukaki, another pretty lake with a grand view of mt. cook, we decided not to stop, as we were already running pretty late, and it was getting dark. perhaps it was a waste, cos it did look pretty nice, but sometimes you can't have it all. before omarama, there was this guy tail gating us (obviously in a hurry to get to queenstown), and he eventually sped past us, but later on, we saw him get pulled over by a police car going in the opposite direction . at omarama (which was just a very small site with a couple of shops), we saw some crazy sheep, and took some pictures, they were making crazy baa sounds, like they were dying or something. i reckon i saw the little red car pull in briefly here too, maybe just a fine .
i took over from omarama to take us into queenstown, it got dark pretty quickly, and in that dark, i managed to run over a rabbit, and almost hit a ferret. the low petrol indicator came on with a fair way to go into town, the nearest place was closed, so we had to go a bit further into cromwell, it didn't really matter in the end, as we had plenty of fuel left.
once we finally got into queenstown, it was about 8 pm, and we drove around looking for the hotel. i pretty much lost it, cos we were driving around in circles not knowing where to go, anyway, eventually we found our way, and checked into the hotel around 8.30pm. it had taken us about eleven hours to complete the journey, we had an adventure, and took some photos, what more can you ask for ?
to finish off, we went to chico's bar and grill for dinner. i had steak (nice, very tender), alf had ravioli, we both had a steinlager and speights gold (i think), one of which was free (each), that's why we went there .
#33 dtra (david tran)
Last edited at 8:47 28th-aug-2007
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