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Hey all,
It's time for another exciting installment of bad travel writing!
I believe I was in Wanaka when last I typed so I'll pick up from there.
From Wanaka we headed via a very scenic drive to Queenstown. The temperature did drop appreciably it has to be said. Queenstown itself was very picturesque, surrounded as it is by mountains.
Despite the fact it is very much the off season there was still plenty of life around the place although I get the impression that at the height of summer it might be a bit to packed and "hard sell" for my tastes.
I didn't actually do any particuarly daredevil stunts in Queenstown as my budget didn't really allow it although I did go luging (and persuade Will to do it too!). For those of you who don't know luging consists of going down a concrete racetrack/run on a little plastic cart with rudimentary brakes. All a bit silly and childish but great fun! Me being me I got a little carried away and crashed. Again, great fun!
From Queenstown we headed for the next tourist spot, Milford Sound. This actually took us two days as we
A walk enroute...
Views from the summit of a walk off the Milford Roadreached as far as Te Anau from Queenstown and then spent the whole of the next day traversing the Milford Road as there was some quite stunning scenery and some good walks to do along the way.
Having reached Milford the booking office for the cruises was shut and the only place to stay in the area (we hadn't previously checked) was extortionate. Steeling ourselves we coughed up $20 each for some electricity and a shower we then discovered that if we booked the 9.30am cruise, with the company we were going to use anyway, through them we saved $13 each. The moral of that story kids is that last minute bungling does in fact pay off!
The cruise on Milford Sound itself was fantastic, being at 9.30 the tour buses hadn't arrived yet so the were about 10 people at most on our boat which was good. The views of the Sound itself where really cool but the highlight was definitely the dozen or so dolphins (and a lone seal) swimming with the boat on the way back. Really awesome!
Heading back from Milford after the cruise we stopped to do another walk we couldn't fit
in on the way there. This was to Lake Marian which was located between two mountains in a sort of valley. It was left behind as the glacier, which carved the valley, retreated. The lake was beautiful although it took us longer to get there than expected as we took a wrong turn (somehow missing the obvious orange marker) and ended up spending 30mins clambering up rocks. Still all good fun and worth it in the end. A further few hours driving brought us to Invercargill on the South Coast. From here we spent a day doing the Southern Scenic Route to Dunedin and stopping at points of interest along the way. It was a pretty good day although not quite as spectacular as we'd been led to believe.
After spending some of the day nosing around Dunedin, which as with all NZ cities was pleasant enough, (Oh,almost forgot we climbed the world steepest street, a whole 19 degrees incline!) we headed to Sandfly Bay in the hope of seeing some penguins. After negotiating some Sea Lions on the beach we came to the hide where on cue at dusk the little penguins started coming ashore. All very cute.
Flipper
Dolphins swimming ahead of the boat It was on to Mount Cook (the highest in NZ) next. We didn't actually see Mt. Cook unfortunately as it was too cloudy but we did see plenty of other mountains and glaciers (and snow!). From Mt. Cook it was a short hop to Lake Tekapo and another walk to the top of Mt. John and a walk back by the lakeside.
Then it was onto Christchurch where our trip with the van has come to an end. Our trusty van has been with us for the past 27 days and I must say it will be a bit odd sleeping in a real bed again after 26 nights in that thing.
We'll spend the next two days exploring Christchurch and then it's off to Australia! So when I get round to writing my next literary masterpiece it will be from Oz.
Adios for now,
Mike.
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