We ended up with less time pressure on the drive than we'd expected because of a snafu in our Hollyford Trek booking. We'd been confirmed for the 11-13th trek, but in reality were on the 12-14th trek (the other doesn't exist). This meant that we did not have a pre-trek briefing (at the Luxmore Hotel, where the Hollyford Track guides tell us everything we need to know for our three-day hike) on the evening of the 10th (for which we were hurrying South from Akaroa). But it also meant that we had an extra day in Te Anau on the 11th, and that as soon as we got back from the trek we would have to hustle to Queenstown to make our hotel booking there. Follow me? Sure.

We said good-be to the Telfers and got on the road at 7:15am. Ian had told me a route toward Rte 1 that went through Timaru and would cut off some time. It probably saved about an hour, which was nice.

It was very overcast as we left and did the harrowing mountainous Banks Peninsula drive in reverse, and stayed with low clouds though the Canterbury Plains. Pausing in Geraldine for morning tea, we had a service station meat pie that was really Not All That, but did not actually make us sick.

We drove through miles and miles of flat farmland to get to the Albury range and into Burke's Pass. Once we got through the pass and into the Lake Tekapo area, the clouds stayed put (rather dramatically) behind the mountains and we were into a lovely blue sky country and loads of open plains with mountains in the background, and sometimes foreground.

We stopped around lunchtime in Lake Tekapo, where we looked at the Little Stone Church from a distance (the Church of the Good Shepherd, technically) and enjoyed the sunshine and lunch on the deck of a massive tourist place. We had another stop a little later, just before Twizel to see Mount Cook from the shores of Lake Pukaki, which was really awe-inspiring.

Inspired by the Giant Vegetables of Cromwell, we stopped at tea time for a tasty flat white and tea on the veranda of a nice cafe.

The trip through the Kawarau Gorge was heart-stopping (and not just because of the scenery). We pulled over just past A.J. Hackett's Bungy Jump to look at the gray-green Kawarau River, where some portions of the Anduin River sequences in Fellowship were filmed.

Skirting Queenstown, we followed along the base of the Remarkables on the shores of Lake Wakatipu and on south. The Remarkables were impressive, despite no snow (it was summer!), as they were all rock and stone and jagged peaks against the sky. The twisty road between mountain and lake was fun to drive, but we soon hit Kingston and drove through wider valleys toward Mossburn and southwest to Te Anau.

Te Anau itself is on the shores of a lake, Lake Te Anau, with a mountain range on the other side of the lake. It's mainly a stopping off place for tours, and surprisingly small. b

We settled into the Luxmore Hotel and then walked down the street to have dinner at Settler's Steakhouse, where you get to choose your steak, then they grill it up for you. Not much on the menu for vegetarians...

We decided to spend our unexpectedly free day on the 11th in Queenstown, so we could see something of it after all, as Te Anau is a launching-point, not a destination. So it's a two-hour drive each way! To anyone who's driven 10 hours in a single day, that's a mere trip to the store.