Mackenzie Country and Lake Tekapo

Friday saw us leave Lake Camp - it had been a very windy night but the bus was sheltered by the pines which meant that we heard the wind but didn't feel it - and drive on to Peel Forest where it just started to drizzle lightly (ideal for bush walking) as we did a couple of hours walking on firstly the Acland Falls track and then the Big Tree track where there were huge old kahikatea, matai and totara trees, some of which were a 1000 years old. One of the totaras was particularly impressive measuring 3 metres across the trunk.

Trish the tree hugger

We stopped for a while in Geraldine to sample and buy some cheese from the local factory shop as well as chutney, cherries and raspberries. Instead of staying there we opted to drive on to a DOC site between Geraldine and Fairlie but a bit further off-road than we expected down "Beautiful Valley". Another dusty gravel road but a nice campsite called Pioneer Park in a grassy basin surrounded by trees. We were joined by just one other camping couple.
The cloud was hanging really low in the valley in the morning as we set off to walk the hour long Homebush Track at 8.00am in the drizzle once again. We then visited some caves down the road which were meant to have historic Maori drawings but we soon understood why the track was all overgrown (and very wet!) as you needed some imagination to see anything on the walls although the fenced off shallow caves made impressive shelters.

Then it was a drive through Fairlie, stopping to look at the tiny market, onto Albury into Mount Nessing Road the location of the golf club which we joined before our travels so we could play at other courses at a discounted, affiliated rate. So exciting to be about to see our new club!! (Mount Nessing was the cheapest club Len could find to join at the time) After driving about 65 km extra altogether what a let down!!
The grass in front of the roadside clubhouse and the grass in all the paddocks was about knee high and we couldn't even see the fairways. There were sheep all through the paddocks but to be fair we did spot some fenced-off greens.

What????

As we were gaping, open-mouthed a nice young farmer happened by and stopped to explain to us that the course is only open Feb- Sept and looks great once all the mowers and members start getting it in shape. He was actually one of the course owners and we told him that we were members but didn't think we could quite make it back to help out at harvest time!

So we saved ourselves half a day by not playing golf and decided to drive on to Lake Tekapo and get settled into a campsite for Christmas. The views as we arrived here were amazing - the sky had totally cleared, the sun was shining and the Lake is the most stunning turquoise blue. And then there are the snow-capped Southern Alps at the end of the lake. We have booked to stay for 4 nights so will be here for Christmas and then move on towards Mount Cook on Boxing Day. It feels so relaxing already especially now that we have cleaned all the dirt and dust from the gravel roads off the outside of Debussy.

We didn't realise until we were settled in that we have no cellphone or internet connection in the camp but we can get it up the road in the village so we will hang out up there quite a bit, especially on Christmas Day so we can hopefully be in touch with family and friends as needed.