Started the day with a very enjoyable walk around Lake Matheson. Just 6 kilometres down the road and close to the "other" major glacier in the area - Fox Glacier. Lots of speculation about whether Fox's glacier mints come from here!
The walk around Lake Matheson takes about an hour and a half, much of it is an easy trail through the bush that surrounds it. Every so often there's a wonderful view over the lake and Mounts Cook and Tasmin (we think!). You may recognise the lake from some of our pics as there are some very famous shots of it. It's water is dark so if you're lucky, there are great reflections from the snowy mountains. Not great today as there was a breeze that created movement in the water but still some great shots.
One surreal aspect to the glaciers is that at the bottom of the valleys lie often fertile farmland as you can see here:
Rest of the day was spent driving to Lake Wanaka, a journey of around 300 kilometres. On the way we ate a fabulous lunch of whitebait patties in an unlikely little shack near the road. Whitebait here is much nicer than at home - tiny, translucent fishes that were freshly caught and cooked on the barby to order with some eggs and served on white bread. Fantastic!
Travelling outside the major cities in NZ is pretty simple in the main because there are very few roads. On starting out this morning, the Sat Nav instruction was to turn in 281 kilometres!!
The WOW Ometer!
On our travels, we were talking about the many wonderful things we've seen and done so far. We decided that we need a way of comparing them so here's our WOW Ometer! We'll grade the places, activities, eateries and so on, on a scale of 1 to 3, three being the highest. To get onto the scale, will require a WOW factor in itself and we reserve the right to regrade things as we have more comparisons!!
So far our WOW Ometer is looking like this:
3 star WOW's:
Meeting up with the Blomfield and Sherlock clan again
Whale watching at Kaikoura
Flight across Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers, Mounts Cook and Tasmin and surrounding area
2 star WOW's:
Matheson Lake walk (free)
Wine tour in Blenheim
Watching the seals just outside Kaikoura (free)
1 Star WOW's:
Duder Regional Park (free)
Whitebait at Curly Tree Whitebait Company
The Mussel Kitchen, Coromandel Town
Watch this space for further updates!!
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