The travel adventures of Mark & Vanessa Greatorex
Having left behind the grey weather of the west coast, we woke to discover blue skies and a pleasant day before us. We’d spent the previous evening at the Scenic Hotel Marlborough in Blenheim, and even managed to take a dip in the hotel pool, though still not a very warm one. We set out…
Our plan for the next few days had initially been to head from Wanaka across to the west coast and spend a few days by the beach, however we’d struggled to find decent accommodation and the weather report was looking pretty ordinary, with a big low pressure system moving across the Tasman, so we decided…
I’ve combined these two days as for the most part, Day 8 of our trip was spent travelling from Lake Tekapo to our destination at Ramada Resort by Wyndham, Wanaka for the next two nights. Once in Wanaka, we stopped at a local craft market before hitting the pool at the resort on one of…
After all the walking the day before, Vanessa was keen to have a lay-day, and as I was keen to give the nearby rivers a try with my fly rod, I happily agreed to leave her at the resort whilst I drove up to where the Cass River entered Lake Tekapo. Once again the waters…
Christmas Day on the South Island was a bit gloomy, but the temperature wasn’t too bad, so we decided to take a drive up to Aoraki/Mt Cook, just a couple of valleys over from our base at Lake Tekapo. Along the way we passed mile after mile of Lupin filled roadsides, and as we came…
After 4 days of driving and visiting all of the usual tourist haunts, the next day was set aside for a bit of R&R. Vanessa had bought a couple of books at a local second hand book stall and she was keen to sit on a lounge in the sun back at the apartment to…
Our trip to Lake Tekapo would take us a fair way back north towards Christchurch before heading off west towards the Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park, almost slap bang in the centre of the South Island. Along the way there were several interesting places we wanted to visit, the first being the Moeraki Boulders. After spending…
Christchurch to Dunedin is just under 370 kilometres. Highway all the way. A little further than Melbourne to Albury. Around 3½-4 hours drive, right? No! This is New Zealand, and a highway here is not necessarily what we in Australia might expect. Very few passing lanes for much of the way, meaning we spent much…
We picked up the hire car from the depot in Christchurch in the early morning, and prepared for our drive south to Dunedin, but we needed to pick up a few supplies for our trip first (including some cheap CDs for the car and some warm jumpers to help us cope with the South Island…
I have to confess that for much of my early adult life I had absolutely no desire whatsoever to travel overseas, preferring to spend my holidays travelling throughout Australia instead, usually somewhere with a lake or river nearby in which I could go trout fishing. In fact, if it wasn’t for the fact that I’d…