Matuka Lodge Twizel

OUR BLOG

Up this morning to listen to Clare and Helen moaning about Tony and Byron’s snoring. Byron and Tony confirmed to each other that we never heard a thing all night apart from a faint bird call and the breeze through the trees. We were all up by 7.30ish and had some bacon and egg rolls for brekkie. Chatted about w...

Day 13 - Wednesday December 30th.
Beep, beeep, beep.... rats! forgot to reset the alarm on the watch! ... I know! whay am i setting the alarm? haha! anyway... I opened the curtains to look out at mixed clouds and sun, but a wind that riveled the wind on the top deck of the ferry! ... to say the least.... "licence to Chill" would make it aro...

Een aantal jaren geleden is R. Tieb voor zijn studie in Nieuw Zeeland geweest om te peuteren in hersenen van herten. In een terloops gesprek over een petje is hem toen gevraagd of hij mee wilde spelen in een film die ze daar toevallig aan het opnemen waren. Aangezien het hier ging om The Lord of The Rings kun je voorstellen dat het antwoord daar...

So it was time to leave Australia which to be honest I was ready for. It had been lovely but I have been looking forward to New Zealand for a long long time now. We left Port Douglas in Oz around 11pm and drove to Cairns to drop off our hire car and then picked up a taxi to the airport. Arriving about 2:30am the airport was not open at such an h...

We intended to head off to Queenstown on the 11th, but as Lake Tekapo is so beautiful and there were still things to be done we just had to stay another night.

On the 10th we discovered a new Spa facility, just 2mins walk from our camper. Open from 10am to 10pm we decided we'd buy a day pass so we could return for the evening to stare a...

On the road Becky at the wheel and heading for Lake Tekapo. Amazing countryside, happy to be passenger so I could absorb our surroundings on the way traveling from Ashburton to the mountain region.

On arrival we found the motorcamp and as early got a great spot with views to the lake. The Lake is a stunning bright blue colour. The weat...

I was doing research on Lake Tekapo, trying to decide whether to go there or not and while looking at the map, saw that there was a river there, called the Macaulay River. I thought that was very interesting, as my family name is Mc Auley, even though it's spelled differently and I wanted to find out more about the river, who it was named after ...

The Franz Josef glacier is something I have been wanting to climb for years and years and I was so excited to finally get to do it! A glacier is an enormous ice sheet formed over thousands of years as the snow at the top of the mountain builds up, and under the pressure the snow forms solid ice. Under the force of gravity the ice then starts to ...

We woke up and indulged in nice long hot showers! We had breakfast and then drove to nearby Talbot Forest and went on a short walk/jog through the wood. We drove to Timaru which had a scenic Caroline Bay. We then headed to Pleasant Point - "The name says it all" was written on the sign as we drove in. We were looking for Maori Rock art here but ...

The boat started up, pulled anchor and then putted further out along Milford Sound to its entrance into the Tasman Sea before turning back towards the head of the Sound and the wharf from where we’d come. Or at least that’s what I’m told. I was the last to surface from my bunk, after breakfast was well and truly over and the bo...