mitsch
Julie Mitchell Joined: October 12th 2007
Logged in: March 16th 2010
Logged in: March 16th 2010
Travel Blog Posts
Our Motel Room
Our 2nd last day gives us another day of sunshine and scattered clouds especially around the mountains. We're packed up and checking out of our motel room at 10am. Thankfully as we head away from Mt Cook Village the sun is still shining and we have excellent views of Lake Pukaki and back to Mount Cook. As you'll see from the photos Lake Pukaki is a brilliant blue. This is because it is a glacial fed lake and the blue is as a result of rock flour. Rockflour is sediment caused when the lake's basin was gouged out by the glacier with rock-on-rock action grinding out fine particles that end up being suspended in the water. The sediment gives the water a milky quality and refracts the sunlight hence the brilliant colour. It is a beautiful ... read more
Mueller Lake & Glacier
We are woken by the sun. Huh? That's weird!! But yes it's true. Brilliant sunshine coming over the mountains to our east. Not only that but the skies are almost clear of clouds. It is very gusty but it's such a huge contrast to yesterday when we arrived. Breakfast is included in our room rate as is a free shuttle to the main building which we take to save us some time. It'd be a 15 min uphill walk otherwise! It's a typical buffet breakfast, not much to write home about! So I won't. :-) We're booked in to do a tour at 2pm with Glacier Explorers. That means we have a couple of hours to fill in. We head off to the Hooker Valley Road and walk the "Kea Point" track; it's about 30 mins ... read more
Arrowtown
It's not a great night sleep - perhaps too warm from the heaters we left on to dry our clothes - and traffic noise ensures we don't sleep too late. Our clothes aren't totally dry and we head to the laundry. Over breakfast it starts pouring and it doesn't stop not even when we visit nearby Arrowtown. Arrowtown is a pioneer village built in the 1860s after gold was found in Arrow River. The town retains almost 60 of the original wooden and stone buildings with pretty treelined streets. It's a nice little town even in the rain. Next stop was the historic Kawarau Bridge. This is the site of the world's first commercial bungy jumping operation. The bridge is 43m above the Kawarau River and jumpers can have a splashdown in the river if they ... read more
WOOHOO!!
It’s a reasonable night’s sleep but we’re awake early with traffic noise. That’s okay, we want to make sure we get to see what we want anyway. Initially it’s raining and all the mountains are in cloud. Although within an hour of being up the sun starts shining and all the clouds are blown away. In to Queenstown to book a jetboat trip. We’ve got a while til it leaves so we walk around the town and find a nice little café near the lakefront for lunch. Back to get the shuttle to the Shotover River where we’re doing our jetboating. The sun is shining and almost a clear blue sky…sensational!! The ride was fantastic! We get so close to the rocks in the canyon section and in the open river parts do 360 spins time ... read more
Clear Skies in the Sound!
Woke up early and no chance of sleeping in - even if we wanted to, which we didn’t as we are eager to see what the day and the Sound would have in store for us. And guess what??? It WAS NOT raining. Hmm…someone must’ve been wishing real hard overnight for better weather. And so it was…after breakfast the skies cleared even more and the sun was shining bright. For the rest of the morning we spent lots, in fact, most of the time out on deck. It was still very chilly, even more for me as my jacket was still wet from the kayaking so only had fleecy jumper and beanie to keep me warm. However it was the place to be to take in the gorgeous sites and take photos without feeling crowded. Before ... read more
Our Cabin
Sunday is upon us and we're eager for our cruise on Doubtful Sound. First up though we watch the Springboks defeat The Poms in the Rugby World Cup. WOOHOO!! (Sorry Becky!) During this time Susan is packing up the car and we check out at 10am. The weather is cold but surprisingly not raining! The car is filled with petrol and we do another lap around town before we sit along the lakefront for a while watching some small yatchs having a race on the lake. At least it's better then yesterday when they were out there in absolutely blinding rain, visibility down to about 100metres on the lake. We're then on our way to Manapouri and, being ahead of schedule, we stop for a hot chocolate. More like a warm chocolate but still reasonably good. ... read more
Wharf at Manapouri
Today we were supposed to be doing a "Big Day Out" tour to Milford Sound with a small company called "Trips n Tramps". We were out front at 8.00am in the cold and rain waiting to be picked up when a 4 wheel drive (not a silver minivan as expected) pulled up. We were then told by a rep from the company that the road to Milford was closed. *groan* It had been opened just one day since Monday but this time, instead of rock falls blocking the road there was snow! We just can't take a trick at the moment. Oh well, what can you do! *lol* So, we went back and watched the rugby (Arg vs France) and what a surprise to see Argentina come up for a win! Not wanting to spend the ... read more
View from our unit!
Before I get stuck into our adventures for the day an apology for the delay getting the entries up. We’ve had trouble getting internet access since getting to Wanaka. Our NZ dial-up service provider has one place in NZ where they’re server isn’t working properly. Yep, you guessed it…in Wanaka. While talking to them on our mobile they said “oh, it was working last year!!” LAST YEAR!!! Geez guys you reckon you could check it a bit more frequently???? :-) Right, now to our day. We were up in time to shower, pack and have a cooked breakfast (quite a treat from cereal and toast) before checking out at 10am. Left Wanaka after another visit to the supermarket (our 3rd since we arrived), fill up with fuel ($1.71ltr) and a quick photo. Our route is via ... read more
Road to Mt Aspiring National Park
The morning greats us with sunshine..yes sunshine!!! It’s a tremendous sight and we’re looking forward to our day out and about in Wanaka. We take a drive out of town alongside part of Lake Wanaka and towards Mount Aspiring National Park. The scenery is beautiful; paddocks, lake, mountains and gorgeous gold and lime green trees, made all the better by the lovely warm sunshine. There are a couple of roadside rock-climbing areas and there are surprisingly a large number of people climbing them. Treble Cone is the local ski area. It’s closed due to lack of snow but there’s still quite a bit on the high peaks. There was a great sounding area which we were hoping to drive to with a brief walk to a beach on Lake Wanaka’s edge. To get to it we ... read more
Haast Pass
There was thunder, lightning and very heavy rain during the night. We got up we packed up and headed to Fox Glacier to do a walk to the toe (1 hr return). We were determined to do the walk rain or no rain…preferably the later. The rain is a bit lighter just at the moment and the sky seems to be clearing so we’re hopeful. Five minutes into the walk we’re stopped though as the path ahead is closed due to flooding. We are just not supposed to see the glaciers. :-( We went back to Fox village to fill up with petrol - paying $1.79 per litre for unleaded. Price in Christchurch $1.60 so it’s not that much more expensive for a tourist spot. On our way to Wanaka and this would normally be a ... read more
