Christmas and New Year Down Under
We had booked to go kayaking on the Mueller Lake on Christmas Eve, so we were very pleased to wake up to blus skies and gorgeous sunshine the next morning. The lake, which is formed at the base of the glacier, is surrounded by ice walls, steep slopes of moraine and awesome views of Mt Cook and Mt Sefton. These are the views that we had missed out on on the previous days on the tramp, so we were very pleased to be able to get the camera out at last…
When we’d finished kayaking we checked into the Hermitage for our 3 nights ‘luxurious’ break from Maisie! We spent the afternoon exploring the village and making the most of the sunshine until we found a cafe with a happy hour, and things went rapidly downhill from there. I’m ashamed to say that I don’t remember much of the rest of the day, but I am assured that we enjoyed some very nice Marlborough wine and Giles cooked us a very nice meal
We spent Christmas day eating, drinking (more), watching old films and enjoying looking out at the rain that had started again rather than being in it All in all a very nice relaxing few days in Mt Cook village.
After Christmas we headed for Queenstown , where Giles had a go at river surfing, which involves throwing yourself down 10km of grade IV rapids on a body board, and I tried my hand at paragliding off Coronet Peak. Both awesome experiences that we raved on at each other about for ages afterwards! We also took the gondola up to see the views over Queenstown, and had several races on the luge at the top - getting very competitive by the end of it
We headed for Te Anau on New Year’s Eve and joined in the local celebrations for the evening. While we saw the New Year in with fireworks over the lake. We remembered watching the fireworks in the Fox & Duck with our friends 12 months ago - and thought about how much colder we were back then. Little did we know how things would change in a couple of days…
Got something to add?
Why not join the discussion and have your say?
