Queenstown from above - Serenity of Manapouri

We shall remember this day at least for the rest of this vacation… We take our campervan to the Gondola station not knowing what to expect. Bad news first: as we park, the top compartment opens setting free all inhabitants, including our beloved camera… The zoom is broken and can only function once held tightly over the camera. We’ll have to replace it or treat it with very special care until the end of the trip…So much for the bad news!

As we take the gondola and go up in the forest, a magnificent scenery unfolds with this otherworldly lake and the mountains that crash on its edge. So this is Queenstown! not the place with shitty weather and lots of adventure-driven activities we saw yesterday. We take the loop walk, nothing special, you’re better off enjoying the views and sipping a hot chocolate at the café.

When we get down, we book a trip to Doubtful Sound for Saturday morning before hitting the road to Manapouri, a sleepy little hamlet where we hide our campervan by the lake at Fraser’s Beach (from people who could ask us to leave or pay a fine). The serenity of the place felt like we were alone in the whole world, or on another planet. The mountains here shape the horizon. We watched slowly as the pale sun set back behind the mountains. The road to Manapouri is definitely one of the best roads of our trip. Of course there are always those one lane bridges and all the rest, but you are always touching that end of the world feeling.