Author: Rosie

…then we turned another corner and we were on the coast where we followed the shoreline right into Kaikoura. On our shoulder all the way were the train tracks that twisted and turned alongside the waterfront. The wind was whipping the surface of the Pacific Ocean and the sun made it a perfect turquoise, the traffic on the road was light and the country was all ours. 

We crossed many braided rivers that hardly had any water flowing through them, they were just huge stony channels with a trickle up the side waiting for the snow melt.  The first large, deep flowing river we came across was the Rakaia, it was running fast, flat and strong,the colour of white paint being washed out of your paintbrush.  There were a few people fishing and a few people loading boats into it, access is easy for any 4WD, you back your boat over the shingle directly into the water and you are off.

And there she be, a huge bright blue lake ringed by mountains and hills, we are in a valley alright and it had a climate of its own, hot, hot, hot.  The first thing that gets you is the colour of the water, you have never seen anything like it.  The stunning blazing turquoise colour is due to ‘Rock Flour’ sediment in the water.  The so called flour was created when the lakes basin was gouged out by a stony bottom glacier moving across the lands surface, the rock on rock, grinding out fine particles that end up being suspended in the glacial melt water.  The sediment reflects the light giving the lake its un earthly colour.

And there she be, the snowy tip of Aoraki which means ‘Cloud Piercer’ in Maori, Australasia’s highest peak at 3775m high.  Of the 27 mountains in NZ over 3050m tall, 22 are in this park.  On Christmas Day 1884 a band of local lads first scaled the summit after attacking it via the Hooker Glacier.  The first woman to climb to the summit was in 1914. In 2013 Rosie and The Operator are walking 20mins to the start of the first epic ascent.
 

Then along came Neville, with two empty seats right up the front as per our request.  His MP3 is pumping the sounds through the speakers, AC/DC, Jimmy Barnes and the like, it fair got the blood pumping as he skimmed the canyon walls and took the most narrowest routes between trees and over areas where you thought there was going to be no water.  7 three sixty spins later, Rosie was feeling abit queasy, walking back to the camp Rosie was getting worse…..sunstroke?  Not sure, it felt like my head was spinning as if I had drunk to much….and Rosie hadnt even started her Christmas libations!