New favorite river: Rakaia Gorge

After picking up the van from Lucky Rentals, we didn’t have a ton of time, so we picked a cheap campsite a few hours down the road. Trevor was an excellent driver, despite being in the wrong side of the road…on the wrong side of the car. The first hour and a half was honestly concerning–it was pretty, but in a, “wow, look at those hedges” sort of way. Not what we flew to the opposite side of the world for.

Then we turned a corner, and without warning the land fell away into a gorgeous river. It was the sort of blue that looks like it belongs in a Skittles bag. There were striped cliffs on the other side, and mountains dusted with mist above it all.

We pulled into our campground and paid $10 each. That’s one of the things we’ve noticed about New Zealand: campsites are usually charged by user, not vehicle or site. The camp host was incredibly nice and told us how to get down to the river, as well as about a walk you could do. We set up camp, Trevor fished, and I went for a walk on the river.

After, we went for a slightly drizzly climb to a lookout. This was the view we got:

Beautiful, right?

Now look at the view I got the next morning:

The wind shifted overnight and drove away the clouds, revealing Mt. Hutt. It was gorgeous.

We got packed up, then left for Aoraki Mt. Cook National Park.