Christchurch to Queenstown

At 9am on Saturday 17th, January we set out in perfect summer weather, from Christchurch heading for Queenstown in the centre of New Zealand’s Fjord land. With 500km to go we would be driving something more than half of the length of the South Island today.

We turned left out of the motel car park, left again and then unbelivably drove in an arrow-straight line for about 120 km across the Canterbury plains before we came to our first turning ar Rangitata.

We now headed North-west towards the peaks of the Southern Alps for 15km, again on an arrow-straight road. Slowly, the flatness of the Cantrebury plains gave way to undulations, then to hills and finally we began our climb up into the mountains proper.

The Kiwis are very fond of driving large, powerful, 4x4s and as we experienced the steepness of the gradients at first hand, we could understand why.

We had made a different choice of transportation…

Our little tin chariot

However, our little Dihatsu was more than equal to any slope, so long as our ambitions didn’t stretch beyond 2nd gear.

Once over the Burkes Pass (named after the first Englishman to attempt it in a Dihatsu). We saw the breathtaking sight of Lake Tekapo spread before us. The waters of Lake Tekapo are a vivid turquoise colour. The chemist in me recognised this as a classic example of the “Tyndall Effect”

Lake Tekapo

We stopped for lunch in the village of Tekapo (a bowl of pasta and a half of lager), before pressing on.

The road continued endlessly, across the high plateau in a series of long straight sections past several more huge, spectacular turquoise lakes until we finally reached the town of Cromwell and turned-off onto the Queenstown road. This road wound its way through several gorges before descending into the town of Frankton.

At this point, the heavens opened and it began to rain.

We drove into Queenstown past the airport and was amazed to see a full-sized jet airliner take-off between the huge mountains on all sides.

9 hours after leaving Christchurch, we pulled up the steep slope into the motel car park (in first gear) and marveled at the fantastic view that would undoubtedly greet us - once the rain and mist cleared…