October 17, 2023 Drive to Gentanner Park Centre, New Zealand

In my research of the top things to do in New Zealand was a boat trip to see a glacier in the mountains.  All the other views of glaciers involved hiking for miles or airplane views.  We decided on the boat trip, but waited to book it until we knew what the weather would be like, since we would be driving a rental car.  That also meant we couldn't find a reasonable place at the mountain site to stay for a couple nights.  But what I found was perfect, a cabin in Glentanner Park Center.

Glentanner was only 2.5 hours from Timaru, but we took 7 hours with stops along the way.   Our first stop was a scenic overlook at Lake Aviemore.

 

spring flowers

From looking over tourist info of the area, we found an area to view Cliff Rocks outside of Omarama.  We drove about 20-30 minutes down a gravel road to see the Cliff Rocks, which reminded us of the Badlands in South Dakota.  We only hiked a short way in amongst the rocks because of our schedule and our knees. 

 

 

We stopped in Twixel for lunch at Raza Bistro.  We had been reading about the fresh water salmon in the area and wanted to try some.  Well, we hit the right place.  To be able to try different salmon preparations, we ordered 3 dishes to share.  The smoked salmon "wings" were the best.  We were told they were from the cheek area, but I didn't see that cut on the description poster.  And they would have been from a large salmon to be meat off the cheek.  Whatever it was, it was a moist smoked fish that was different than any smoked fish we have had.  The smoked salmon ball was a spread made with cream cheese that was also covered with smoked salmon.  We completed the trio with a smoked salmon sandwich.  All 3 dishes were amazing.  We tried to plan to return, but it never happened. 

 

 

Our next stop was a scenic lookout at Lake Pukaki called Peter's Lookout.  The mountains were beautiful across the lake with what would have been our first view of Mt Cook, if there were no clouds.

 

 

 

Glentanner Station was developed in 1858 and has 45,000 acres and carries 9,000 Merino sheep and 230 Red deer.  When it changed hands in 1957, the new owners added the tourism portion.  Besides the camping/accommodations, there are scenic flights and a Glentanner Merino Retail outlet.  The Merino wool is sold to Ice Breaker, Designer Textiles and Smart Wool (an American company and we own their socks).

Glentanner Park Centre is within Glentanner Station and only 18km from Mt Cook/Aoraki.  We chose a motel like cabin.  We had beautiful views of the mountains from here.  We had picked up a few groceries in Twixel and had dinner in our room.

first time we had ever seen room info about earthquakes

our room was on the end of the duplex

theses cabins were accommodations for park employees

 

had to try the local gin

 

 

 Sunset pictures

Mt Cook 7:00pm

Mt Cook 8:00pm

 

 

 This was the first clear night away from city lights to see the Southern Cross constellation.   I can't count the number of times I sang "When you see the Southern Cross for the fist time" by Crosby, Stills and Nash, and said "I'm going to do that someday".  Special moment.

 

 

Southern Cross on the upper left

I decided to include the sunrise pictures here before moving on to the next day's adventures.  

Mt Cook 7:00am