New Zealand Week 1
by overflow50
Jake, Em, Georgia and I jetted off to NZ into thankfully massive amounts of snow (that had all fallen in the preceding 4 days). A quick stop in CHCH to grab a juicy rental car then we drove through to Lake Tekapo for the night, where we found ice on the highway and a few cm's of fresh snow when we woke up. Properly wintery!
From there we drove the next morning to Omarama at a steady 40-50kms/h due to snow covered roads and seriously slippery conditions (I was considering if we would need chains to get up the hill out of Tekapo).
When we got to Omarama we found out the Lindis Pass was shut due to the snow and spent most of the day hanging around hoping they would get it open. Thankfully at 3.45ish they got the road open and we made it through to Wanaka where we feasted on high country salmon (the best salmon I have ever eaten!).
Due to the snowfall TC was closed so we headed over to Cardrona for a day in a howling gale that turned into a full on blizzard by midafternoon. The next day while Jake and Em slept in Georgia and I headed up to TC for opening day to be greeted by waist deep powder and a true frenzy for fresh tracks. We all spent a couple more days at TC before deciding to move on. A quick day trip over to Queenstown to find a road named after Em's great (great?) grandfather Rester Rd. After much phaffing and discovering Jakes iPad had a GPS we found the unsigned dirt track and took our intrepid rent-a-wreck to the locked gate.
From there we headed over to the West coast to see the glaciers.
