Site Report: Twizel, New Zealand

Visits

• 2012-01-14: We left Dunedin and drove up the coast a bit before heading inland. The area along the coast is pretty uneventful. The main attraction is a bunch of round boulders. We spent half an hour walking to the boulders, and that time is gone forever. From there, we drove up through the farmland and hydroelectric projects to the small town of Twizel. Amazingly, every single hotel room in town was booked. And the main holiday park was chock full of screaming children, so that ruled out camping. Luckily, we found a place to stay in town when someone canceled at the last minute. We spent some time walking around by one of the hydro projects, and the area was scenic enough. There are several very blue lakes in the area. The color of the lakes is caused by glacial silt. During the night, it even snowed up in the higher elevations which made it even more scenic. Our visit to Twizel coincided with the 49er's first playoff appearance in quite some time, and luckily the fancy hotel in town had the game on television. Barbara and I watched a very exciting win in our own private hotel lobby pub. After the game, we made an attempt at visiting the Mt. Cook National Park. As we got close to the park, however, we ran into a wall of horrific fog, cold, and rain. So, the alternate plan was to look for the Black Stilt some more. After a hike through a swamp, I found a juvenile stilt in the delta of the appropriately named Lake Pukaki (Kaki is the Maori name for the stilt).

Species Seen

Lifelists

• Australasia
• World

Trips

• New Zealand