Give them roots and wings

Day 4

We gave the children donuts for breakfast as we needed to make an early start. We started our drive to Franz Josef at 8:30am.  We reached Franz Josef at 10:30am.

We were going to take a Heli flight! Our flight was at 11am. There was a safety briefing before that.

The flight was exciting, although the pilot seemed a bit jaded.  He did his drills – the running commentary, the steep climbs and sudden turns – but perhaps because we communicated only via the headset, he was not too personal.

We had so much fun on the glacier, although it was only for a short 10 minutes.

It was really glaring up there. Now we understand why snow blindness could happen.

For lunch we ate at the Picnic Bakery which was right at the end of the street. It cost us about 24. It is a good option if you are on a budget.

After that we went for the Glacier Walk.  It took us about 50 minutes to walk there, and another 50 minutes to walk back.  We spent another 20 minutes at the Glacier wall, so it took us about 2 hours instead of the 1hr 30 minutes estimated.

After the walk, we checked-in to Fox Glacier Top 10 Holiday Park at 5pm.

The facilities were good and we rested while the children played at the playground. (See other post on Campervan travel).

7:10pm

We proceeded to Lake Matheson Cafe (about 10 minutes’ drive away) for dinner.  It was in a lovely setting.

The food is just as good! We shared some garlic bread and salad. Edmund took the Merino Lamb. I took the Lamb Shoulder.  The children had fish and chips.

We had dessert too, although we waited quite some time for it.  I visited the nearby souvenir shop (closes at 9:30pm) while waiting.

Cost us about $150.

Finally at about 10pm we were done with dinner, and we went for a walk to Lake Matheson.  We saw a beautiful sunset at the start of our walk, but that meant we were too late.

See our pictures in the dim lighting… I was quite spooked walking back… 

That night Edmund had a bit of an adventure. He met a trekker who had nearly died. His name was David. He was from the Netherlands, and he was only 19 years old. He apparently got lost trekking and used up all of his provisions. In a desperate state, he decided to throw himself off into the river hoping it will bring him to some civilization.

Well, he made it to the Fox Glacier Top Ten Holiday Park. We gave him some of our milk, biscuits and eggs.

Way to go, David!

Day 5

We set off at 8:45am for Wanaka.  Again, we stopped for beautiful scenery and amusing sights.

Knight Point!

I called these “Card houses”.
Near the Makarora Tourist Centre at Haast Pass.

12 noon

The kids were all so tired, they fell asleep in the campervan. Edmund and I went down to take some photos while they slept on.

1 pm

We reached Puzzling world! Edmund took some time to wake Elkan and Elias up, while Samuel and I went to the cafe to get some food.

There were puzzles at the cafe.
I had to feed Samuel, of course.

Elias did some exploring on his own.
He was not amused with the toilet mural.

I was amused by it,
and Samuel was game enough to pose.
I didn’t like the Tilted room in the Illusion rooms section.
That one made me wanna puke…
I could not take many good photos…

I liked the Ames Forced Perspective Room in the Illusion Rooms section. The technique of this illusion was used in The Lord of the Rings film to create tall people and little people.

We all loved the Great maze! The objective was to locate all four corners before you exit.

We split up, and after 1 hour, we all finally found the 4 corners!

We Left the Puzzling World at about 3:45pm. We drove to Queenstown via Highway 6, which was the LONGER route. I gave the children their tea en route at about 4:30pm. Edmund was so tired, he had to take a nap while the rest of us ate.

But the longer route brought us to the beautiful Te Wai a Koroko (the Roaring Meg), which drives a hydro electric dam and merges with the Kawarau River.

Finally we reached City Impact Church at which we listened to a dynamic sermon by Michael Turner of Red Rain Band.

We had dinner at Macs at about 6:30pm. After that, we drove through Queenstown and made our way to Moke Lake. We were to camp over at Moke Lake Campsite (DOC). By the time we reached the entrance of the road to the campsite it was past 10pm, and pitch-dark.

We were not sure whether we were on the right track because the road was so narrow. We were sure that we did not make any wrong turns, but it was quite a risk to drive on the one-lane road in the dark. The guidebook stated that the road was not suitable for large campervans, and we were not sure whether ours was considered a large campervan. On the other hand, we did not know where else to go to camp.

In the end, we decided to drive on. It was easily the most scary drive Edmund has ever done. There were no street lights and the road was winding, so he had to alternate between the high beam and the low beam. There were a few times we felt like we were driving right next to the cliff (the next morning we realised it was not). We were so fearful that there would be oncoming traffic because there was no room for two vehicles to pass each other, and it was too dark and dangerous to reverse.

Thank God, that we met no vehicle going out, and we made it to the campsite safely. We slept past midnight that night.

Go back to Day 1-3 : Christchurch, Kaikoura and Greymouth

Read about Day 6 : Wanaka and Queenstown

Return to New Zealand, South Island : Overview