Road Trip! Part 1

Wednesday Jan 9

Woke up at 6:30. This is definitely a trend. Packed all my bags and then walked down the hill with Mom and Nolan to pick up our rental car, a 2018 Toyota Corolla. I was elected to drive said Corolla up the treacherous hill back to the hotel to get our bags and say goodbye to the rest of the group. If you’ve been following my blog, you might remember that the last time I drove in New Zealand, I was in a high-speed car crash while turning into a gas station. Needless to say I was a little bit nervous terrified. By the time we drove the three blocks up the hill, I was SHAKING. But, I didn’t hit anything or anyone and nobody hit me (which was what I was worried about tbh) so Mom and Nolan both voted that I drive the car all the way out of Queenstown. Great.

 

We packed up the car and headed out. After 5 minutes, we stopped at Burger King for breakfast (even though I had already eaten) and then continued on our journey.

The nice thing about road trips is that you can go where you want to, when you want to, and you can take as many stops as you need. And since we were driving through the heart of New Zealand wine country, we made sure to stop at a nice place for lunch. Carrick Winery—a delightful little place in the Bannockburn area of Central Otago—was one such place. The grounds were GORGEOUS, the views STUNNING, and the wine DELICIOUS. Oh, they also grow olives and make their own olive oil.  For lunch we sampled the cheese board and bread with olive oil, accompanied by Chardonnay, Riesling, and Pinot Noir Rosé. We really enjoyed ourselves.

Lunch at Carrick Winery!

I will say, however, that although the olive oil is great, the olives themselves are not so much. They provide olives with the cheeseboard so I ate one. First, not a fan of all the really crunchy seeds. Ew. Second, it was SO SOUR I thought my tongue was going to burn right out of my mouth. I ate only half of an olive and called it good enough.

After Mom drove us out of wine country, we pulled to the side of the road so Nolan could give it a go. First trip out of the country and I’m already making him drive on the left side of the road! Watch out Daytona, because Nolan is a driving expert! But in all honesty, it was probably a little scary for him. I could ask him, but he’s sitting across the room from me right now and it’s just too much work.

Lake Pukaki

We booked it all the way to the Mt. Cook visitor’s center. We pulled into the parking lot at 4:30; the center closes at 5:00. Close one. It didn’t really matter though, as low clouds had come in and the mountain was completely hidden behind a thick layer of fog and rain. But Nolan got to drive over some neat one-lane bridges, and we did see lake Pukaki, which was the most beautiful color of blue I had ever seen in my life. The hue is caused by glacial flour, which is finely ground up sediment caused by millions of years of pressure and ice movement. However you think about it, it makes for some pretty water.

Mt. Cook? Somewhere in there.

We finally reached our destination for the night, the Peppers Bluewater Resort in Tekapo, around 7:00.  If you ever go to Tekapo (and you should!) get a dinner reservation early! We had to wait until 8:00 to eat, and by the time we did, we were famished. Without spending too much time reading the menu, we ordered what looked the best and waited. The waiter brought out utensils for us quite ceremoniously, which intrigued us as to what kind of establishment we entered. Then our food arrived, raw, on a burning hot stone for each of us. My stone had venison, beef, and lamb, and Nolan’s had 400g of beef. Mom made the mistake of ordering chicken, which meant she had to cook her food quite a bit longer than the rest of us. Regardless, she ate it all and didn’t seem to mind the taste.

Our hotel room, the pond, and the view of lake Tekapo

After dinner, Nolan had a nice long soak in the very large bathtub (sorry, no pictures) while Mom and I watched some TV. We went for a drink at the hotel bar, and hung out all evening. At around midnight, the clouds broke and we could see some stars, so Nolan and I walked down to the shore and went stargazing for a bit, but it was already so late and we were pretty tired, so we were back at the hotel by 1:00 AM, ready to sleep.

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