[Peel Forest, New Zealand] Last night was freezing! Both in our thermals and under a blanket and a duvet and we were still cold. Seems the add on tent extension was not so good for keeping in the heat. Will try without it tonight. After a very late start, we said goodbye to the excellent little campsite and drove off down the road (my turn to drive). It was beautiful sunny clear weather. About 200m away we parked and took off on our first walk in NZ, or tramp as the Kiwis call them. It was a pleasant stroll along the edge of the gorge to the viewpoint with a great view of the gorge and the mountains behind it.

Our next stop was to get some supplies. I of course thought I knew the way and without consulting the GPS set off down the road only to realize some 10kms later that my sense of direction can and does go wrong and we had to do some minor backtracking to get back on route.

We made it eventually to Methven the nearest town with shops. It seemed practically a ghost town, mostly filled with ski shops that were closed. Guess it doesn’t get a lot of business in the summer. The supermarkets were open though.

We set off next for Clearwater lake, for no other reason than the fact that it sounded nice. The snow covered mountains in the distance on the way to the lake looked promising, but the lake itself turned out to be a little dull for us. It was very clear just like the name suggests. It was also crawling with boats. Mostly pulling kids behind them on the modern equivalent of rubber tubes. Since we don’t own a boat and have no interest in water skiing, we had a very late lunch and decided to move on.

Scanning the map and checking the LP for somewhere not too far away to stop over, we found a reference to Peel Forest, a scenic park amidst the remnants of some old forest that managed to escape being chopped down. We headed there and are glad we did. It’s a large but nice campsite. A pre dinner stroll took us through some pleasant forest and we are looking forward to some walks in the woods tomorrow.

[Pictures: Rakaia Gorge and on the road out to Clearwater lake with snowy mountains in the background]

– Posted from my iPhone via 3G