We went from Wanaka to Arrowtown. While only an hour drive, the last few minutes
includes more than its share of switchbacks! Arrowtown has a short walking tour
which focuses on the Chinese role in the gold mining era, it was interesting to
see how they lived. Then onto our lodge,
Poplar Lodge another BBH. We were
walking/shopping in Arrowtown when we ran into Spruce again, not surprising
this time as they knew were we would be.
Both of us bought some ‘green stone’, we had been looking at them for a
while but had not found the right thing.
Both of us found what we were looking for in the same store.
We had arranged to meet up with our friends on Enchantment
(Michelle and Vern) in Queenstown so since Arrowtown is only 20 minutes away
and only a few switchbacks, off we headed but it was cloudy and bitterly cold,
so we went from coffee shop, to pub, to an ice cream shoppe! What a way to
spend a day with some friends. Then back
over the hill to our lodge.
The next day we met another of our cruiser friends Minnie B
(Phil and Norma) as well as Enchantment for a trip up the Gondola in Queenstown.
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| Queenstown from the Gondola |
The views are truly
amazing, and there is a ‘luge’ track! Let the race begin… We had to do a
mandatory “learn to luge first run”, and then we all had lunch and some laughs. Then off to the fast track. Cheryl and Michelle were the speed demons and
ganged up on Karen on the last run, they let Karen go first, and then Cheryl
kept trying to overtake, even bumping Karen, which allowed Michelle to zoom
past, with Cheryl not far behind. A great run and a great way to end our luging! We had moved into Queenstown, so just walked
back to our place, The Flaming Kiwi.
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| A Bird, A Plane ...nope just Cheryl and her Pilot |
The next day Enchantment met us at our BBH and we went hang gliding. At least the girls did, Vern was our
photographer. The hang gliding
experience was excellent. We all got the
chance to ‘fly’ the gliders, which was amazing, and the views were
awesome. We all bought the pictures and
video, easy marks!
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| Can I steer this thing? What do mean turn left??? |
The next day we headed to Milford Sound part of the
Fiordlands. (The Fiordlands are a large area in the south
west of the South Island were the terrain was dug out by glaciers.) We had the audio package for the road to
Milford Sound to listening to; we had Mike as our guide okay it was the guy on
the recording. It certainly made the
trip go by fast plus it was educational and fun. You start in flat country, with the mountains
in the background, pretty. Then you go
over the pass and you are into the valley of the sounds were the views were
amazing. We made only 2 stops on the
way, Mirror Lakes a 5 minute walk and the Chasm a 20 minute walk.
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| Chasm..the power of water |
We were expecting to meet up with Minnie B if we were
early enough; we just got there in time and found that Spruce was there too,
excellent! We checked into the Milford
Lodge, this will be our first dorm experience. But for the first night we know our roommates,
Georgie and Jake, Brits that we had met at two earlier BBHs. They helped us adapt.
Can you say ‘SANDFLIES’? When they say there are sandflies in the
Sounds they are not kidding. The lodge
has a large kitchen, but no barbeque due to the Sandflies! The lodge even provides repellant, which we all
apply liberally and often. After a great
breakfast, which was part of our package at the lodge, we grabbed the bus to
the dock. The boat ride (part of our
package) through the sound was beautiful.
The captain brought the bow of the boat up close enough that we were
getting wet from the spray of 2 waterfalls and we even saw a penguin and a
number of sea lions. They dropped us off
at the Discovery Centre, (part of the package) which is an underwater viewing platform;
you are some 10 metres underwater. We
saw Black Coral, which is white, several types of triple fins we had not seen
before and a different type of trigger fish.
As ‘we’ are the ones in the cage you do not know what you will see. Normally the water is brown from the tanins
from the trees and has a large layer of fresh water on the surface. But it had not rained in several days and the
fresh water layer was thin and clean and the visibility was great. As we waited for the return boat we had our
box lunch which was also included. We
walked back to the lodge to enjoy a glass of wine and then prepare dinner and
hide from the sandflies.
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| Milford Sound by boat |
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| Key Summit with Lake Marian in the Valley |
We had booked the Barnyard Lodge, just outside of Te Anua
which is about 2 hours from the Sound.
What a view we had from the lodge and our cabin. And an on suite bathroom! Yup you guessed we
have being staying in places where we share a bathroom. The next morning we
walked the beginning of the Kepler trail, just out to Shallow Bay Hut. A very nice walk, mostly flat in beech
forest. We were fascinated by the number
of different types of mushrooms we passed.
Unfortunately, we don’t know if any of them were edible. Plus we saw Canadian Geese. We went into town
to the visitor centre, and they suggested that we watch the film in town, a
helicopter trip over Fiordland, which included Milford Sound. The film was amazing, especially as the
helicopter went over the waterfalls!
We had a text from our other cruiser friends Dancing Walrus
(Ken and Joni). They had sent it when we
were in the Sound, were there is no phone coverage so after getting back into
cell range we made a date to meet up in town for a drink or two and to catch
up.
Te Anua to the Catlins, via Manapouri. We had a text from Spruce on route and they
suggested that we go into the museum in Invercargill, so we did it after all it
was just another left turn. So we got to
see a live Tuatara (a lizard) and the fastest Indian, (a motorcycle) which was an
1929 motorcycle that this New Zealand guy made famous by racing it at the Salt
Flats in the States (or Sir Anthony Hopkins did when he stared in the
movie: The fastest Indian.) and still holds
the fastest land record. On route we had
the best fish and chips yet, not greasy and made with Blue Cod, the local
specialty. Our final destination was
Curio Bay and the Lazy Dolphin in the Catlins, our BBH lodge. O’
yeah forgot to mention our highlight along our drive, as we were heading along
the highway we saw a sign for Niagara Falls, being good tourist and Canadians
we stop for a look, okay let’s see: if
you were an ant this waterfalls may look as massive as Niagara Falls, yup the
guy who named it had a great sense of humor.
As we were being shown around our lodge just outside the
kitchen window we could see the Hector dolphins jumping in the waves. Hector
Dolphins before we even left the lodge, but not good enough for us so off we
went to the lookout at the end of the bay for another angle, way cool. Our little hike then lead us to the petrified
forest, where ash buried the forest, preserving it. It also happens to be where the yellow eyed
penguins have a nesting area. And as it
happen a parent was coming in to feed it’s babies! What a sight.
As we made our way back we saw 2 babies sleeping and another parent
coming ashore. After dinner we walked
back and saw the same 2 babies waiting to be fed and another parent coming
ashore to feed another hidden baby. What
a lucky day.
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