Day in Christchurch and driving to Mt. Aspiring!

Trip Start Jan 19, 2006
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Trip End Feb 23, 2006


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Friday, February 3, 2006

Waking up in Christchurch (ChCh) we had to organize our car pickup and pack our gear, as unfortunately we had to move rooms and our larger room would not be available until 2pm. We put most of our stuff in storage and then got our rental car, ironically already coming with a name or so it seemed, as it was a Nissan "Sunny". It was an automatic which made Theo sad. We wandered around ChCh and went to the department of conservation office (DOC) to get suggestions on some hikes. Based on talking to an older hiker that worked there we had two hikes in mind; doing the 3 Pass Hike in Arthur's Pass or doing the Dart-Rees in Mt. Aspiring. We bought some white gas and did some interneting, then came back to Stonehurst to move into our new larger room. We packed up our hiking gear for a 4-5 day hike, and then fell asleep in the room, waking up 3 hours later to find out it was 7pm! We tried to hook up with our friends in ChCh but kept getting a busy signal (found out later that daughter Rose was talking on the phone with friends!) 01) Drinking ginger beer in Christchurch
01) Drinking ginger beer in Christchurch
 . We were so bagged that we cooked one of our camping meals in the hotel room (nice little stove) and fell asleep pretty early. The next morning was a bit grey, so we decided to drive south to Mt. Aspiring National Park to do the Rees-Dart Track. Driving south from Christchurch was nice as it was cool outside, but the sights along the road of Lake Tekapu and Mt. Cook were still spectacular as the clouds moved away in the afternoon. Despite Nadine offering to drive, Theo declined (apparently Nadine drives too fast for him!). We made it to Queenstown around 3pm where we booked a 4WD bus to take us to the start of the Rees-Dart from Glenorchy and return us as well. Back in the car to Glenorchy, a 45min drive from Queenstown along spectacular lakes, to areas where segments of the movie the Lord of the Rings were filmed. We found a great camping spot right on Lake Wakatipu at nearby Kinloch, and we ate our dinner while looking over the water to the mountains all around us. Off to bed with dreams of glaciers in our head!
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