From Tekapo we headed away towards Twizel which is another favourite place of ours. The weather remained overcast with the occasional shower, so the photos I took all looked a bit gloomy. Because of the weather we decided not to stop at Burke’s Pass. We wanted to get to Twizel in plenty of time to go to the laundromat and get the washing done, and still get to the canal in time to get a good parking place.
We managed to achieve that. It was disappointing to see that the machines at the laundromat have not been updated in years, so we still had washing strung up in the motorhome to get properly dry.
However, it all got dry in the end and we had a prime parking spot on the side of the canal.
Instead of buying a fishing license, this time, we elected to watch and see if any fish were being caught before we wasted the money. There were up to 12 fisher people at any one time, but we did not see any fish being caught. We did see several fish jumping from time to time.
We did get some salmon though – we purchased it from the salmon farm shop!
Up behind the canal is a steep little hill, that we walked up with the dogs. At the top is a lone apple tree – heavily laden with red apples with no Codlin Moth damage. We picked some, and filled my pockets, and stewed them up to have with our breakfast. The view from up there is pretty special.
The next day we walked under the bridge at one end of the park and headed out towards where the canal starts from Lake Ruataniwha. There were several fisher people there as well – people out and about, taking advantage of the Easter break. We didn’t see any fish being caught there either!
We really enjoyed sitting outside the motorhome watching the birds. There were many little black ducks, called the NZ Scaup or Papango. They are New Zealand’s only native diving duck and seem to have a little fluorescent strip at the end of their beak. Really cute!
They swim around in groups of 8 – 10 , and then all but 2 will dive pretty much at the same time. The remaining two seem to stay as look outs.
There were also birds called the Australasian crested grebe. They seem to spend quite a bit of time floating around with their heads buried in their wings. When they are awake they have a little crest on each side of their heads. They also dive for fish, weed, snails etc.
It was a relaxing time at the canals, and after a wet night we decided to get on the road again, destination unsure but possibly Omarama.
Away From Home NZ 