Mit den engen Verwanten am Trampen

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The end of January came quick and also my Mums and Hanni`s departure date. The long hold master plan was, that Louie and me will join/ drive them to Christchurch in a little detour through the Central Otago/ Canterbury region. With hostel availability at its peak and my travel time cut short thanks to a new job offer (teacher aide in a different school), that plan was forced to adapt and Twizel in Central Otago become our main base for a couple of days.
What an awesome trip that was. Louie and me enjoyed having some time for ourself again after being apart/ busy with our guests for almost 5 weeks. My Mum and Hanni resided in a massive caravan on the campground in Twizel and Louie and me secretly slept on its couch for two nights.
The four of us succeeded to find the restaurant with the worst cost/ quantity relationship in all Otago (never go to Poppies Café!) on our first evening in Twizel. The next day we ventured out to conquer the Pyramid Saddle, which all of us did! From here, Hanni and Mum turned around and went on torturing their knees on the way back down while Louie and me headed on to battle the Flanagan Pass. Expecting to find a small Doc hut on the other side, we were lucky to have brought our own tent as a back up. The hut was anything but inviting and we had to look for a place as far as 400 meters away to avoid tenting in a human poo or other unprofessional left-overs of former guests.
The hike here was pretty awesome though. Vast landscape, tussock gras, brutal wind- sunshine and a storm cloud hanging over lake Ohau. The colour of the water here is simply stunning! As little kids we usually learn that we should use a blue pencil to colour in lakes and streams. Then we grow up and realise that water looks anything but blue. And then you are an adult and go to New Zealand and here it is again: Water as blue as it gets. Magic!
We spent a windy but good night in our little tent and gave up our former plan to walk up another 1000 m Peak in the morning. Instead we walked out on an endless gravel road along the lake, admired the craziest rainbow we have ever seen and that lasted for more than an hour and caught a ride back to civilisation with a real massiv log truck. Massive massive! There was a ladder to climb into the drivers cabin. We were told that he (the driver) drives forth and back between Twizel and Timaru as many as 16 times every week! They have to deliver 8 loads of logs which are then shipped to Asia to become furniture and such.
When we reached camp around 11 am, we came just right for a second breakfast with Hanni and my Mum. Men- those two ladies know how to enjoy their holidays :).
Pretty sure, we headed out again shortly after that and drove to the extremely impressive Mt cook village. Those views, that walk… Pictures and text follow :).