Day 28 – Lake Ohau

Left our little farm-stay quite early this morning to make our way back to the mountains and lakes.  The area is quite dry but as we kept heading west it became greener and more lush.  We passed a couple of dams and hydro-stations before we turned right at Omarama.  We found our way quite easily to our log cabin at Lake Ohau.  The dams, rivers and lakes are all light turquoise in colour and absolutely amazing to see.  The mountain tops in the distance still have some snow, though the days are becoming quite hot. It was sunny all day with the magical white fluffy cloud formations in the distance.  Apparently there will be a front moving in, so we had to make the most of today.

Drove to Twizel and then took the road to Aoraki/Mt Cook.  We followed the fabulous Lake Pukaki all the way.  The water again was this brilliant turquoise colour that kept begging us to stop and photograph.  Not just us, but every other tourist on this road as well.  Tourists are in abundance once again, either traveling by car, campervan, buses, bicycles or motor bikes.

We could see that Mt Cook was still heavily covered in snow and we were fortunate to see the summit cloud free today.  Though the clouds were threatening to cover this majestic mountain, but luck was on our way.

We headed back to Twizel to do our grocery shopping for our 2 day stay in our gorgeous log cabin.  Love it here.  It is absolutely so serene, peaceful and very beautiful.  The grounds around the cottage are totally covered in Lupins, from soft lilac, the odd white/cream, pink and an abundant lot of purples.  The pine trees are part of the backdrop with another mountain in front of us holding our interest.  This beauty I think is ?Ben Ohau/Ruataniwha – 1522m high, and so striking with these incredible patterns of every tone imaginable.  Obviously, these must have been carved into the stone by a lot of snow and ice over the years.  The Ohau Range is behind the cottage and this has many tall mountains as well.  I think if we lived in NZ it would have to be by the lakes and moutains of this amazing place.  On one side is the small Lake Middleton and Lake Ohau is not far from us in the front.  We will investigate these a bit more tomorrow. Otherwise we will just enjoy our little interlude here.  Might wash, tidy the car, sort out clothes etc.

Bird song is plentiful, but one little bird just flew into the window and I fear he is not in a healthy state.  Rabbits are coming out everywhere, and I keep forgetting to mention that they are in plague proportion in NZ.   Just like the introduced Possum, but I have not seen any live ones, only many squashed ones on the roads.

Tonight, I actually cooked a full meal.  We bought one huge fillet of fresh Salmon from this Salmon Farm…………oh and let me tell you it was absolutely delicious, with more for  lunch tomorrow.

Terry has nearly finished the crossword of the latest Women’s Weekly, I cannot do much on the internet as there is no connection to speak of.  Will have to try again later tomorrow to find a spot.  Otherwise…we are out of touch for a few days.

Just popped into the resort down the road and purchased some internet time….gee whiz, that is becoming desperate to keep this blog updated daily 😉