I kept waking up on the hard ground so didn’t get a good night’s sleep in preparation for our early walk up the valley. However, the three hour Hooker Lake Walk reinvigorates me quickly with its glacial waterfalls, bobbling rivers and streams. The scenery again is awesome. Hooker Lake is at the foot of Mt Cook and at its’ centre floats a mini iceberg.
After the walk and a quick lunch, we go back on ourselves past Lake Pukaki again. I am driving and I annoy Sister Mary by abruptly stopping to photograph the scenery. ‘It’s a fekkin big blue lake!,’ she complains.
Journeying south westerly, we stop at Twizel, which isn’t an impolite suggestion, but a town name that means ‘town of trees’. It doesn’t have any trees though, and is instead an anonymous looking suburb. A suburb of where, I am not sure, and we do not stay long enough to find out.
We go on to Oamaru, a Victorian looking town on the east coast, where there is also a penguin colony in the harbour. And a seal. The penguins occupy the old harbour dockings while the seal sits lazily at the gate of the docks. There is a small information centre here which offers tours to see ‘breeding adults’. I don’t know if this means we would paying for the privilege to see penguins in the act, but it is one we pass up as we are told that, despite there being hundreds on the docks, there are only three in the nesting area to see at the moment. Hold on, aren’t penguins supposed to be monogamous? Apparently more come out to, um, breed at night, maybe so the kids don’t see.
We drive further south to ‘Glencove Scenic Campsite’. It is set in a very peaceful woodland, but we have been spoiled by the settings of our campsites so far, and this one seems dull in comparison. Around the corner from here is ‘Camp Iona’, which is crowded with kids bouncing on trampolines and playing various ball games. This is owned by the Presbyterian Church. In our cynical way, we suspect we have found a little hidden militia camp of the type that feature on Louis Theroux programmes, but the children stay up making noise past our own bed time, so they seem to enjoy it.
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