Day 5 (Aug. 6) Mt. Cook, Lake Pukaki, Lake Tekapo, Christchurch

It was soooooo cold the morning we left Twizel.  There was frost all over the ground as we were loading the car. 

Car windows covered in ice

We headed for Lake Pukaki and beautiful views of Mt. Cook.  Lake Pukaki is so cool.  It's this milky green color.  It is glacier fed so the milky look comes from the minerals and rocks that are washed into the lake by melting glaciers. 

It did not warm up by the time we got to Mt. Cook. It was -4 Celcius.  The girls were bundled to the max and not too keen on hiking but hike we did.  We hiked to the glaciers and boy was it worth the hike. 

The glaciers at the top of the hike

The hike warmed us all up and we had awesome views of Mt. Cook.

Some lady, who knew how to use a manual focus camera, agreed to take our picture.  "Wow, you really messed up your camera"  she said...gee thanks for pointing that out...she also made Treg take off his glasses, doesn't look like him, he always has glasses on...



There was this water that was coming out of the ground and freezing because it was so stinking cold :-)  It made this really cool ice rainbow




From Mt. Cook we started on our way to Christchurch. We stopped at Lake Tekapo and grabbed some lunch. Treg got a meat pie. He loves them...I wasn't crazy about them. Sierra had her first cheese toasty (one of many, many on the trip) which is New Zealandese for toasted cheese sandwich.

Lake Tekapo...the water colors are just incredible!

We continued on our way to Christchurch. We arrived at Willowbank and took in a Maori show and toured the reserve.

The wild eels eating at the preserve..creeped out Treg and the kids haha

They would drop this pink stuff on the rock and the eels would come swarming

The reserve was cool because they had actual Kiwi birds. You aren't allowed to photograph them (well you can photograph the dead stuffed one) because they are nocturnal animals. They are the coolest little birds!! They are so fun to watch as they wobble around.

check out how big that egg is inside the kiwi...holy cow!!

Stuffed Kiwi...the live ones are less creepy haha

The girls enjoyed the Maori show. Sierra got to go up and try poi balls (actually the cute boy in the show that got to pick one girl to go up on stage picked my miss cutie pie teenage girl Maunia but she was being shy and handed them off to her sister). After Sierra's stint on stage Treg got to go up and do a huka...he sticks his tongue out and looks menacing a little too well. They both stood right behind a post on the stage so it was hard to photograph them. I tried to get Treg to move but he had a cold and was not feeling the love for giving me photo ops. Did you know it is also nearly impossible to manually focus your camera when it's really dark...not that I'm still bitter about breaking my camera or anything...

I so cannot do that with my eyes...believe me I tried...I think it's a Maori blood thing haha

Ok, Treg can totally do this!!!  Maybe he has some Maori blood??

Sierra learning poi balls...apparently harder than it looks...

Oh ya, Treg was born to do the huka ;-)

haha...any of you remember doing this stick thing in like 4th or 5th grade PE???  If you went to North Ogden Elementary you should remember it.

 We got done with the show semi-late and decided to get some good old American comfort food...Pizza Hut Pizza :-) We then set off to find the rental house for the night. As we were driving looking for this place we were getting a little nervous...yes even in beautiful New Zealand there are apparently "bad" parts of town...who knew??? We finally find this house tucked way back behind some bushes and went in to eat dinner. We were not loving the house but were trying to suck it up until Treg went to get a glass out of the cupboard and there was mouse poop on the counter and across the top of the toaster..."we're not staying here" he declared...the rest of us did not take much convincing.

Now here was the kicker to the house not working out that night. This was the one city I had booked a place like 6 months ahead because it was the city where the All Blacks were playing Australia the next day. I knew lodging was going to be tough to find...I was right.

We had seen many signs like this

along the roads as we were traveling.  Who doesn't need big bags of sheep poo right??  Well, when looking for a hotel, in that same gross part of town, we passed a motel with a sign out front that said "rotted horse poo, $.50 per bag"  Now I'm not sure how one "rots" poo but it certainly does drop the cost...but Sierra asked that we please not stay at that motel...smart kid.

We went to the main part of the town and all we were seeing was "NO vacancy"...we finally found a hotel with 1 room that slept 3. I begged them to find a roll away and we made it work. We were also at their mercy as far as the cost for the room since they knew everywhere else was booked. We ended up paying about triple what we had planned for lodging in Christchurch grrrrrr...