South Island stop #1: Mt Cook

On Saturday we packed up all our stuff in Christchurch, picked up our housesit family from the airport, watched a really sweet reunion with them and their happy dogs, and got our road trip podcasts and peanut butter cookies ready for a drive to our first stay in Twizel. It’s a small sleepy town of about 1200 people, but a great jumping off point into our first area: the Mackenzie District, with its beautiful lakes, Church of the Good Shepherd and iconic Mt Cook, the tallest mountain in New Zealand.