This morning we packed up the RV and set off towards Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park, a 2 1/2 hour drive from Wanaka. It is Otago Anniversary Day today, a holiday celebrating the arrival of the first European settlers who arrived in 1848 on two ships sent by the Lay Association of the Free Church of Scotland. The settlers founded the town of Otago, and today this is celebrated as a national holiday. Because of the holiday many things are closed, so it’s a good day to be on the road.
Just five minutes out of town Sharyl spotted Red Bridge Berries, where we could pick our own strawberries. The timing was perfect as the boys had moments earlier polished off the last of the fresh blueberries Sharyl had picked up from a farm stand.
Red Bridge Berries is roughly 10 acres of Strawberries - easily 10 times the size of the Strawberry patch at Kula Country Farms, and with only a few other people picking we had endless Strawberries at our fingertips. They also had a sign near the field advertising for Tiaki Bees - a really cool local business that provides fully serviced beehives on people’s property.
Just as we were finishing up picking it started to drizzle. The entire day was predicted to have rain, so we were fortunate to get 30 minutes of berry picking in before the bad weather started. From there it was on the road towards the town of Twizel - the closest real town to Mt. Cook - where we would buy groceries for our next couple days of camping.
The road to Twizel was wet but not overly precarious, threading through agricultural land and sections of mountainous foothills.
From our supply stop in Twizel we headed 10 minutes up the road to The Mt. Cook Alpine Salmon Shop. This little shop on the banks of the glacier fed, turquoise Lake Pukaki serves up exceptionally fresh salmon at the foot of New Zealand’s Highest Mountain - Mt. Cook. We heard about Mt. Cook Alpine Salmon Shop from a New York Times Article that we read a couple months back covering highlight food and wine in New Zealand’s South Island.
The weather was pretty ugly when we pulled in, so there was no view of Mt. Cook, and the outdoor picnic tables set on the Lake’s edge - which in good weather would certainly be an idyllic setting for fresh sashimi - weren’t looking very enticing. The tiny shop was quite busy with customers who were all awaiting the 4 pm sashimi delivery as they had run out of the day’s earlier supply. Thankfully it was about 3:50 so we didn’t have long to wait (some people had been waiting at the shop since 3 pm for the fresh Sashimi to arrive). The shop also sold a variety of smoked salmon- some sweet, some savory options.
All the Salmon sold at Mt. Cook Alpine Salmon Shop are Chinook (also known as King Salmon), these Salmon are raised in fresh water as part of New Zealand’s Salmon farming industry, which began in the late 1970’s.. Chinook Salmon are native to the Northwest coast of North America and the East Coast of Asia. They were introduced to New Zealand in 1901, and today are the only species of Salmon farmed in New Zealand, whereas Atlantic Salmon are the species farmed elsewhere in the world. New Zealand has wild runs of Chinook in many rivers, and Sockeye Salmon runs as well (Sockeye were also introduced to NZ).
Just after 4 pm the delivery truck arrived, and as they opened the cold boxes we were right there to take some fresh sashimi off their hands!
With the supplies from Twizel and the sashimi from the Alpine Salmon Shop, we were ready to head the final 25 minutes to the campsite right outside Mount Cook National Park.
We pulled into our campsite at Glentanner Park Centre, doing our best to keep everything dry as we got situated in our new site. Reef made himself right at home, using one of the large boxes Sharyl got to carry groceries to create a little RV scale cardboard box fort. River was bouncing around, turning on and off the hazard lights, and opening and closing the door in the rain until he lost his balance and fell out of the RV into the rain after which point he was slightly less wild.
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