Kim arrived from Auckland at 0925 today. Despite the bad weather (again), everything went like clockwork. I picked him up from the airport, went to the supermarket to get some groceries for our camping hosts before going to the car rental agency.
We had to add Kim as an additional driver simply by showing his licence. As the car had a slight knocking noise, we enquired about swapping to a different vehicle. We managed to swap the Nissan Tiida for a Mazda 2. The latter proved to be peppy and more importantly handled very well. It’s a pity I didn’t have the Mazda earlier as the Tiida was very waffly on the two days I had to negotiate the windy hilly roads.
It was about 1040 before we started driving from Christchurch to Lake Benmore. The trip took about 5h including a meal break. Less than 4h of it was on road while more than 30 mins was on unsealed roads starting in Twizel along the western shores of the lake.
Google Maps didn’t have information on the area. I had used Maps.me to help us navigate. While it wasn’t perfect, it was good enough to get us to the unofficial campsite with a couple of wrong turns.
Our host Brent and his mate Darren have shares in the farm on which they’ve set up camp. It was a lovely spot by the lake with large trees. They a caravan each, a toilet each (one chemical, one longdrop) and several tents for the family members. They also have a boat each, and Darren a jetski as well. On the site were also two shipping containers joined together side-by-side to form a lockable storage and kitchen.
Apart from getting groceries from Twizel every now and then, they seem to have everything to keep them happy for their month-long stay.
Brent took us out for a ride in the boat on Lake Benmore for his daughter to go water-skiing. It was rather windy and there weren’t many good spots so it was a short-lived outing.
We had a late dinner, cooked up by the two families and shared. Brent’s caravan had a good gas-heated shower powered by a pump drawing from a barrel of lake water. It was good to have a wash before retiring into our tent. It was still light when I crept into our tent around 2230.
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- Collection of old memorabilia at Burkes Pass near Tekapo.
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- With lupins near Lake Tekapo.
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- Lupins near Lake Tekapo.
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- Lake Benmore is an artificial lake formed due to the construction of the Benmore Dam, the country’s largest earth dam.
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- Camping with friends at Lake Benmore.
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- Camping with friends at Lake Benmore. The shipping containers serve as a shelter in bad weather and as a kitchen.
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- Camping with friends at Lake Benmore.
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- Camping with friends at Lake Benmore. The shipping containers serve as a shelter in bad weather and as a kitchen.
