Friday, November 27, 2009

South Island Trip.. Christchurch to St. Arnaud

Six nights, 1600 kms in the car, and judging by the blisters on my feet, possibly something similar on foot. We had a wonderful time. The scenery is quite special and if you ever get the chance to visit NZ's South Island then you really should go.

We flew to Christchurch with Air New Zealand then picked up an Avis rental car. Great service by both companies and we'll certainly use them again. From Christchurch we headed north to St. Arnaud.
The weather wasn't the best ... cloudy and looked a bit gloomy at times, but at least it was dry.

St. Arnaud is in the area knows as the Nelson Lakes and we were really
hoping for some nice blue skies to show the place off. First impressions weren't that hot, but things did improve ... eventually! The second image shows Lake Rotoroa which is the larger of the two Nelson Lakes. (This image is a nine shot HDR processed with PhotoMartix Pro).

We stayed at the Alpine Lodge which is just a short walk away from the smaller of the two Nelson Lakes, Lake Rotoiti, close to Kerr Bay. In fact, most people who visit the Nelson Lakes take a photograph from the eastern most jetty at Lake Rotoiti. It's probably one of the most photographed jetties in the country! Having seen these images in the tourist brochures we were of course hoping for the clear blue skies over the lake.
Sadly this didn't happen until towards the end of the day. Even so we had a great time walking round some of the tracks and the overcast weather helped keep the temperature down a bit. Lovely place and we all like the idea of going back to do the walks we didn't have the time to try this year. Only too quickly did our time in St. Arnaud come to a close and we were back in the car and heading north to Nelson.

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