Day 4 (Mar 9, 2013): Roadtrip to Omarama

The Quick Facts:

* Put our fears at bay and set out on the (other side of the) open road
* Stops in Lake Pukaki and Lake Tekapo
* Stayed at sheep farm in Omarama
* Had dinner at the Lady Bird Vineyard (“lady birds” = lady bugs)

The Good:

* The color of Lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaki
* The characters we met at the sheep farm
* Mastering the New Zealand road system….and becoming less nervous about driving on the left side of the road

The Bad:

* Sheep are apparently more reticent to pose in a picture with me than I thought they’d be

Today we started our road trip.  The first big section is Christchurch to Queenstown via Wanaka, which we broke up by staying at a sheep farm in Omarama.  But first, this is our car and partner for the next two weeks:

To say it’s a compact car would be an insult to compact cars.  We solved our space issue by strapping Carrie to the roof…all of the experience of a convertible, none of the enjoyment.

Once out of Christchurch, the New Zealand roads are a ton of fun to drive – two lane highways with lots of turns etc, would be perfect for a Ferrari (which, for those of you keeping score at home, is the farthest thing from our actual car on the “car food chain” that one can possibly be).  The highlight of our drive down was Lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaki.  Both of these are lakes formed by the glaciers, and the finely ground rock particles from the glaciers (the glacier flour) have one of the most unique colors I’ve seen in a body of water (this is not a bad picture, this is the actual color of the lake):

 

 

 

 

We stayed the night in a sheep farm.  Our accommodations consisted of a single room set off from a common kitchen, with no insulation and two single beds.  We awoke in the middle of the night to a mouse trying to make its way into our room!  Rustic.

 

 

 



 

We met up with a band of ~6 New Zealand women, two of which had husbands in tow.  The women were all bikers, and making the ~600 mile journey from the top of the South Island to the bottom of the South Island.  They called it “Tip to Toe” and it was the lifelong dream of one woman in the group.

 

 

Did I mention they were all in their 70s and 80s?  Yeah.  They are biking anywhere from 25 – 60 miles per day, with one rest day every ~10 days or so. I did a ~55mm bike ride last Fall and took 3 weeks and a team of therapists to recover.  So the lesson there is that it’s never too late; never too late to try something new or tackle a dream.  Later in life, we may do things slower, more deliberately, or even completely differently than we would have when we were young, but that’s not the point.  The point is to keep *doing*.  And so here these women are, setting off on their ~55m bike ride the morning after we met them.  God Speed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As for me, I was left to learn the hard lesson that sheep really don’t want to take their picture with you.  This is as close as I could get…