Day 8 – Accidental Off Roading

349km driven

Today we say goodbye to the mountains and make our way towards Christchurch. Another long travel day which started with a stop at Lake Pukaki. It was a little overcast at the start of today, which meant that the lake didn’t have its bright turquoise shine, but the sight was beautiful nonetheless. We had a lot of driving today, only having quick pauses we moved on pretty quickly. 

I have heard that Lake Tekapo is an amazing area to explore, so we couldn’t pass it without having at least a quick look around. So next we headed towards the church on the lake to appreciate the view, try our hand at rock stacking along the bank, and check out the statue commemorating the collie dogs who enable the people in the region to farm the land because doing it without them would be impossible. 

Google maps took us off roading today, and with only partial success. We followed a gravel road for maybe 20 minutes to a “viewpoint” which was just stopping by the side of the road. We found an area to park and went to stretch our legs. I walked a bit away from the car, and managed to find a pretty spectacular view of Lake Tekapo, without sharing it with anyone. It was pretty special, so maybe maps knew what it was doing. But both Drew and my bodies were feeling their age after yesterday, so there wasn’t much exploring today.

Watching the landscape change as we drive north is a little bitter sweet. The frequency of snow capped mountains is lowering with every kilometer, but the green fields and rolling lush hills are increasing. It’s definitely a different kind of beautiful. Our next pitstop was meant to be Pine Beach, but google maps was a bit finicky about it again, making it very tricky to find. We parked at a dog park along the water and explored the shoreline, but no pines in sight unfortunately. I’ve noticed so much logging through our travels, I hope the beach didn’t fall victim to that.

We moved on towards Fairlie next, with a particular bakery coming highly recommended. Fairlie itself is a tiny country town, with quaint, old-timey buildings slotted amongst farm supply stores and rolling fields. When we drove past the bakery on the main strip, there was a line out the door! We parked and joined the queue for Fairlie Bakehouse, got our pork and applesauce pies, cheese and steak pie and a cronut and hot choc for the road. These were absolutely worth the stop! 

We had about 2 hours until we reached our room for the night, with one stop in between. We tried to get to the Rakaia River mouth, but google maps let us down once again! We found a lookout, it wasn’t the view we were hunting, but as with everything we’ve seen so far in New Zealand, it may not have been what we were looking for, but it was stunning regardless. 

We finally got to check into our room, and I immediately lay down and slept! Travel days are exhausting! When I woke up, we headed down the street to eat at Ramen Ria, and then head home for the evening. We don’t have much tomorrow since we fly out in the afternoon to head to the North island, but we need all the rest we can get!