What have the Romans ever done for us?

What have the Romans ever done for us?

Our learning point for our first night at Twizel is that it gets very noisy in the van when it rains!  And rain it did.

We had planned to go back to Lake Tekapo and then up to Mount Cook, but it was still raining on and off in the morning.  In the end, we decided to take the Twizel Trail, a 9km walk around the town.  This took us along the riverbank, through some pine forest and up Manmade Hill, from where you get amazing views of Mount Cook.  Well, you do when the mountains aren’t shrouded in cloud!

Wet and weary, we walked back into town and stopped off at Poppies Restaurant, which was far better than we had expected.  Their daily special was a delicious oven-baked sole with tomato risotto and home-made hollandaise sauce.  Diane might just have a new favourite wine, a Chard Farm Sauvignon Blanc from central Otago – which we are now planning to visit.  And here’s the dessert, a sticky date pudding with toffee sauce, ice cream and fruit coulis.

Twizel also has some interesting street names.  We came across Nuns Veil Road, Two Thumb Drive, Hooker Crescent, Jollie Road and Irishman Drive.

Overnight a strong wind got up and it continued to rain on and off.  We decided there was no point attempting Mount Cook, so we set out for the Clay Cliffs of Omarama.  These are tall pinnacles made of gravel and silt, left behind by ancient glaciers.  And they are at the end of another gravel road, this one only 4.5km long, but with bigger corrugations and not much gravel.  Plus two single lane bridges, two gates, an honesty box and a 300m uphill walk.

At the end of the road you find yourself in a flat plain ringed by mountains with the clay cliffs on one side – it was quite spectacular.  We were lucky to have got there quite early.  As we walked back to Ermintrude we passed another couple heading up the track, followed by a minibus-load of tourists.  At the first gate someone stopped us to ask if you can drive further up – the way he’d just watched us come down – and we passed about a dozen more cars before we got back to the second gate.

Not long after leaving Omarama we drove round yet another massive lake, Lake Benmore.  Looking straight up the lake we think we might have seen Mount Cook in the distance.  It was definitely a mountain, anyway.

We were now heading back towards the East Otago coast.  We stopped off at the Aviemore dam, the largest of its kind in NZ, and a disappointing vineyard in Kurow before arriving at our overnight stop, Oamara.  When we checked in we asked if it was always this windy and were told they were having a weather bomb.

Oamara is apparently the steam-punk capital of the world and is famous for its blue penguins and Victorian heritage.  We explored the Victorian Precinct and harbour but the penguins were all out fishing.  We did see seagulls, cormorants and some seals, but my favourite find of the day was a Dunedin whisky tasting bar – I had no idea they even made whisky in NZ, but it was very welcome on a cold afternoon!

And what have the Romans ever done for us?  Well, ever since we set out for Mount Sunday we’ve been driving on dead straight roads that go on for miles.  I think the Romans must have discovered New Zealand and built the roads before even the Polynesians arrived!