5/9/10
Locations: Bus tour from Christchurch to Queenstown, New Zealand, including stops at Lake Tepako, Lake Pukaki, and Mount Wakefield and Mount Cook.
Locations: Bus tour from Christchurch to Queenstown, New Zealand, including stops at Lake Tepako, Lake Pukaki, and Mount Wakefield and Mount Cook.
If there’s such a thing as a gorgeous scenery overdose, I did it. I was literally high off of all the intensely, immensely beautiful scenery around me ALL DAY LONG. My eyes just kept drinking and drinking it all in, like a wonderfully sweet smoothie that never got to be too much. We spent about 12 hours on the bus tour (including stops, though) and every time I snapped 20 photos and thought I wouldn’t see a lake clearer and smoother than this, I wouldn’t see a river rushing through rows of golden trees like this again, I wouldn’t see a valley of sheep and cows surrounded by high mountains like this again, I DID. I saw it again, only better and prettier all the time. It’s unbelievable, honestly. The ferry and train ride I raved about a few days ago pales in comparison. New Zealand is completely, insanely beautiful. It’s all undisturbed and absolutely picture perfect. It’s what I imagine most of the world was like before humans came a long and added a bunch of stuff to the landscape. Just land, water, and sky the way God wanted it. Let me get more specific for you.
We left Christchurch at about 7:00 A.M. on a Great Sights tour bus with several other passengers, primarily couples, and our amazing tour guide, Brian. Brian was an excellent tour guide and so full of information that he talked for at least two-thirds of the trip, but he also knew every turn on the road and hit them at high speeds. So, I felt a little motion sick and had to put my head down and close my eyes because the scenery flying by accompanied by the bumps and turns got to be a little much. I was very grateful to get some fresh air at our first stop that morning, which was at Lake Tepako and the Church of the Good Shepherd. The Church of the Good Sheppard looks like just a quaint, lovely stone church but the tons of people flock to it for weddings every year just for the view outside the bay window behind the altar. The view is of Lake Tepako and the mountains around it and you can just see why it is such a popular spot for tying the knot. Lake Tepako has such clear blue water and it’s so smooth, it reflects the mountains and trees at its edges with little blurriness. The only thing disrupting the landscape, and disrupt is probably too harsh of a word, is the flocks of ducks flying across the water and consequently creating ripples. It’s like staring at a postcard, except better because you can see the sunlight moving across the water, you can hear the ducks quack, and you can see the trees and grass swaying in the breeze. It feels like you’ve been dropped into a dream or a storybook
We left Christchurch at about 7:00 A.M. on a Great Sights tour bus with several other passengers, primarily couples, and our amazing tour guide, Brian. Brian was an excellent tour guide and so full of information that he talked for at least two-thirds of the trip, but he also knew every turn on the road and hit them at high speeds. So, I felt a little motion sick and had to put my head down and close my eyes because the scenery flying by accompanied by the bumps and turns got to be a little much. I was very grateful to get some fresh air at our first stop that morning, which was at Lake Tepako and the Church of the Good Shepherd. The Church of the Good Sheppard looks like just a quaint, lovely stone church but the tons of people flock to it for weddings every year just for the view outside the bay window behind the altar. The view is of Lake Tepako and the mountains around it and you can just see why it is such a popular spot for tying the knot. Lake Tepako has such clear blue water and it’s so smooth, it reflects the mountains and trees at its edges with little blurriness. The only thing disrupting the landscape, and disrupt is probably too harsh of a word, is the flocks of ducks flying across the water and consequently creating ripples. It’s like staring at a postcard, except better because you can see the sunlight moving across the water, you can hear the ducks quack, and you can see the trees and grass swaying in the breeze. It feels like you’ve been dropped into a dream or a storybook
.
Next, we made our way toward Lake Pukaki and Mount Cook, or Aoraki as the Maori call it. We climbed up and up the rolling hills and mountains until we arrived at the Hermitage Hotel, an enormous, elegant hotel just a short distance from the base of Mount Cook. Mount Cook is New Zealand’s tallest point at 12, 316 feet. That number is high, and maybe by now you are picturing it in your head. But let me tell you that you can’t. You can’t really feel the enormity of Mount Cook until you are standing below it and you are just a peon, a speck of life, in the shadow of the majestic, towering peak iced with glimmering snow. Caitlyn and I climbed up the Glencoe trail with Jonathan, co-May seminar leader with Scott, to get even a better view of Mount Cook. The hike took about 20 minutes and was the easy trail, but I got out a breath and hot in my fleece jacket quickly because some of the steps were quite steep for the length of my legs. But I reached the top of the trail, and when I sat down on the wooden bench that offered a head-on view of Mount Cook and its sidekick Mount Wakefield, it was more than worth the walk. I’ve seen mountains in Montana before, but seeing just this single peak towering over the others in the range, just dwarfing all of the beauty surrounding it, was so awesome. After coming back down the trail, we ate lunch on the balcony of the Hermitage and I recorded my video on the May seminar group’s blog.
We continued on our journey to Queenstown, but not before making two smaller stops. The first stop was at a café that had great ice cream cones. I had one scoop of the Mint Cookie Smash, as did many of the others. Later, we stopped at this really cool fruit store which offered every kind of fruit imaginable, including the New Zealand favorite kiwi. The fruit also came in every FORM imaginable: fresh, dried, chocolate covered, yogurt covered, jam…you name it, this fruit store had it. I tried some tasty samples but didn’t purchase anything. In between these stops and all the way to Queenstown, I just stared out the windows and took in all the sights that flashed by my bus window. Sometimes I listened to Brian talk, and other times I listened to songs on my iPod, searching for something that would be an appropriate soundtrack to the landscapes. Nothing came close to fitting. But no matter what I was listening to, I just gazed out my window in wonder. Everything is so similar in term, but so different in description. For example, Lake Tepako is a deep blue, smooth, and clear. But Lake Pukaki is turquoise, just like the stone that is in southwestern jewelry like the ring my dad got me in Arizona, and has a milky look to it, like it is filled with turquoise orange juice instead of water if that makes sense. Mount Cook and Mount Wakefield are both stunning mountains, but Mount Cook is completely snow covered at the top and its peaks are jagged. Mount Wakefield softer, rolling and brown.
One thing every sight has in common is that it is wonderfully, lusciously appealing to the human eye. My belief in God has primarily been fueled by my relationships with others, my observations of kindness and love, and my faith in the goodness of humans. But New Zealand has reemphasized to me that the world has been created, and not assorted at random. Someone has designed these landscapes and knows they are beautiful. I look out at everything I see out my hotel window right now and I remember all of the sights that have been etched in my brain forever from my time here, and I just know that they were deliberate.
The Church of the Good Shepherd.
The view inside the church.
Mount Cook
Me in front of Mount Cook.
Kelly, Caitlyn, and I before chowing down on delish pizza at The Cow.
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