We woke up to amazing views of Mt. Cook and Lake Pukaki from our freedom campsite. After breakfast and coffee I decided to take a few pictures of the scenery before making our way to the White Horse Hill Campground we’d reserved in the National Park near the base of Mount Cook.

I particularly wanted to take a few pictures of the beautiful purple flower we had seen by highways all over the north and sound islands. We wondered if it was an indigenous flower, or something imported from abroad. It turn out that the flowers are called Lupins, and are not native to New Zealand.

Here is a description of how Lupins ended up all around New Zealand from the Discover New Zealand website:

“Surprisingly, lupins aren’t native to New Zealand. They were introduced in the 1940s by a local farmer, Connie Scott, who had a vision of turning the harsh, barren landscape of Mackenzie Country into a more vibrant and lush environment. She scattered seeds all over the region, not knowing that this simple act would create a national sensation. Lupins were first brought in as a way to help stabilise the soil and add nutrients back to the land, but what no one realised was how quickly these flowers would spread and take root across the country. Nowadays, they’ve become synonymous with picturesque New Zealand landscapes. If you’re planning to visit during the blooming season, lupins are a must-see, but there’s more to these beauties than just their good looks.”

On our way to Mt. Cook, we decided to stop in Twizel for gas and noticed a community market in their main square. It was a beautifully sunny but crisp morning, and spent about an hour wandering around the market.

At the local grocery store I bought a giant 360 gram Cadbury Dairy Milk Fruit and Nut chocolate bar for us to enjoy over the next couple of nights. I’m not sure why, but chocolate bars were very inexpensive in New Zealand. For example, this huge chocolate bar was only about $5.50 CAD!

By the time we decided to hop in our RV and drive to our camp spot at Mount Cook, it was pleasantly warm in Twizel.

We arrived at the White Horse Hill Campground at the earliest possible time to hopefully get a campsite with a decent view of the the mountains and were lucky enough to get a good spot… until a tall camper parked beside us and blocked our view! Fortunately, we found an even better spot that backed onto a forested area.

We chilled in the camper for a bit while we looked at All trails to figure out what hike we would do that afternoon. Because we were only staying for one night we decided to hike the world famous 11km Hooker Lake track before dinner time.

There were a lot people who had the same idea as us, so the very accessible out and back trail was quite busy. The trail was very well maintained and the many boardwalks on the trail made is the track very accessible.

The weather that afternoon was amazing and the scenery was spectacular. We highly recommend this rather easy hike with such amazing views!

In the end, it took us about 2 hours and 20 minutes to hike the almost 11km out and back Hooker Lake track.

Back at our RV, we made dinner together while listening to a podcast. After dinner we went for a short walk around the camp site to checkout the central kitchen and showering facilities for the following day. Before bedtime we watched a couple of shows that we downloaded while on the Twizel public wifi and then went to bed exhausted.

The next morning it was again beautiful and clear but a chilly morning in the mountains before the sun was able to warm up the campground. We had an enjoyably slow morning sipping coffee, and then decided to warm up and stretch legs with a short hike before we had to vacate our camp spot. We enjoyed a short 3km out and back hike on the Kea Point Track that ended at a spot overlooking Hooker Lake.

We waited until the very last minute that we could be in the campground before heading off to Lake Tekapo for a hike and short swim, and then onto a Top 10 RV campground in Geraldine, NZ for the the night.

We decided to hike the 9.2km Mount John Walkway and along the way were able to enjoy amazing views of the deceptively tropical blue looking Lake Tekapo. The hike started with a fairly steep climb on a wooded hillside, and then opened up to a scrub brush track that passed by an observatory.

After the hike Heather decided to take a quick, but bracingly chilly, dip into Lake Tekapo before we started our dive to the Geraldine Top 10 Holiday Park.

We arrived at the Geraldine Top 10 Holiday Park before dinner time, so after we got settled in we looked for a restaurant near by but couldn’t find anything that looked great. In the end we bought some meat pies from a little grocery store and then took them back to our RV and warmed up there. We were boy quite tired after all the hiking we did in the hot afternoon sun, so we did some laundry and took it easy before bedtime.

The next morning we did one more small load of laundry (forgot a few items yesterday), and then stretched our legs with a short walk around Geraldine’s Main Street, and purchased a few small wool items to take home with us for presents. We also bought time TimTam’s as a snack for our drive north along the coast.

On our 3-hour drive to the Rakaia Hut Campground, we had to stop on a highway for sheep crossing! Rakaia is right by the ocean with several kilometres of farms between the campground and the main coastal highway.

After lunch, went by the beach and watched waves crash and saw three porpoises. We planning on walking down the beach aways to find a hiking trail, but the rocky beach made it too hard. We had spotty cell reception and wifi at the campground, but after all the hiking we did the previous day it was nice to have a chill afternoon. It was a windy but nice place to spend the evening.

Before we headed to bed we booked some activities and a campground for Christchurch the next day.