Geraldine / Lake Tekapo
After a night's rest in Christchurch, we were ready for our South Island Roadtrip! We rented a Toyota Camry via Avis. Service at the Kilmore Street branch was great. The car was ready when we arrived, and the paperwork was completed quickly. Miss Ting didn't struggle as much as I expected when we put her in the car seat (thank goodness!), so off we went for our South Island adventure!
A brand new car seat was provided, and given that Miss Ting gets carsick quite easily, I asked if there's any kind of cover available so that I can protect the car seat from vomit. Guess what the staff told me? "It happens, just clean it up and it'll be fine." Such assuring words for a noob mummy :) (On the other hand we had a terrible experience at the Auckland Airport branch. More on that in my later post.)
On the way to Geraldine - Lots of cows!
Family Amenities: High Chairs, Outdoors Playground, Kids Menu, Stroller-Friendly
Our first stop was lunch at Geraldine Orchard Farmshop & Cafe. The food was average, the farmshop was the highlight! We didn't buy any groceries since I didn't plan to cook and it's too early to buy fresh produce to bring back home, but we bought some honey.
Eggs Benedict
Kumara Rosti Stack - Not the swiss rosti I was expecting!
Farmshop
Fresh vegetables!! I'm sure we would have bought some home if it was our last day there.
Fresh fruits
Nuts
There's an outdoor playground with a bouncy castle, but Miss Ting didn't fancy it. She stood on it for a few seconds before crying to get off.
I think she just prefers running around on the stable ground
Random shot on the way to Tekapo
We stayed at a holiday home (or you can say airbnb) in Tekapo. The key pickup for several holiday homes was from this container office near the lake. The accommodation was just a few mins drive from the office. It was a cosy log cabin with a huge backyard for bbq! Too cold for us to enjoy the backyard though. Would have been a great place for stargazing. I planned to stargaze that night, but it was too cloudy.
Just two weeks before we went there, I saw news that barricades were going to be put up around the Church. The barricades were up when we were there, but it didn't stop the tourists. Here's the best photo I have of the Church without the tourists in the background.
Lake Tekapo was the first scenic location we visited in New Zealand. The waters were so blue! But I also quickly realised that most of the water bodies in New Zealand were blue hahaha!! Since Miss Ting vomited on the way from Geraldine to Tekapo, we decided to spend some time on the ground and skipped the visit to the University of Canterbury Mt John Observatory. I hope it wasn't a mistake! She had fun throwing stones at the lake though (and then she started to throw stones everytime she sees them after that -_-)
Lake Tekapo on a clear day - really beautiful!!
I wanted a photo of myself like that but I guess I found a better model
Throwing stones with daddy
We saw several cairns (stack of stones) around the lake. I used to see them quite often along hiking trails in South Korea. They believe that if you make a wish and stack a stone on the pile, and the pile doesn't topple, your wish will come true.
I guess the blooming season for lupins was almost over by the time we went in end Dec, so I wasn't able to find bushes of lupins for that instagram worthy shot. But I really liked the colours of these.
My plan was to have dinner at Kohan restaurant, but it was full by the time we reached at 6.15pm. I wasn't expecting the restaurant to be packed so I didn't make a reservation. Bad idea! In the end we ordered takeaway to eat at the accommodation. Do note that the takeaway menu is different from the dine-in menu. And that's the Tekapo roll on the bottom left, named after the place! It's basically california roll with beef. Yummy though!
We bought this cold pressed juice from four square (the same supermarket that bts went to in bon voyage 4 ep 4 🤭). Super yummy and inexpensive!
There's the end of our short stay at Tekapo. If time permits, here's a few more places to visit:
1. Mt John Observatory
2. Tekapo Springs
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