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Published: December 12th 2008
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Day 25 - Monday 8th
As the forecast stated, the weather is cloudy, rainy and much cooler this morning. It’s a pity because we intended travelling to Te Anau and Milford Sound. Our host Denise recommends that we take a hotel in Queenstown and a return bus trip from there that includes a boat trip in the Sound. She feels the driving involved will be too great. However, the arrangements complicate our thinking and we decide to drive to Te Anau, sorting out matters from there. If the weather improves, we’ll try Milford Sound the following day, if not we’ll head down to the Invercargill area.
The weather gets worse and we head for Te Anau via the Crown Range Road. While the fantastic views of yesterday are gone, we do manage to photograph the beautiful arrays of wild lupins and broom that we missed yesterday. At the pass, Queenstown is nowhere because the clouds and mist are floating around below us, spooky! All the way to Te Anau we are aware of missing spectacular scenery, especially running parallel with Lake Wakapitu. At Kingston we stop to see the Kingston Flyer, an historic steam train. The next trip
to Fairlight is not until 13.30 so we continue our journey.
We book into the Bella Vista Motel at Te Anau and our host Leanne suggests the weather is to improve tomorrow. She is able to book us on a return bus and boat trip to Milford Sound. Fingers crossed for tomorrow.
We finish off the night with a slap-up nosh of Porterhouse steaks bought at the newly-opened local supermarket. We only decided on this because our hosts have provided a covered electric frying pan. We open all windows because there’s no extractor. David fries the onion and lifts the lid off to sample progress when a very loud fire alarm erupts, then all power trips off. We phone Leanne and she sorts matters without complaint, in fact she loves the fried onion aroma and reckons she’d eat with us if she’d not eaten earlier. The steaks are exquisite and all for £2.75 and would cost at least £30 in a UK restaurant.
Day 26 - Tuesday 9th
At 8.00 Dave our guide and driver arrives with the minibus. We collect other patrons until 12 people fill the bus. Dave is now part-time driver
of the company he once owned. He still has a small farm and was once a policeman. He’s a tremendous guide with a wicked sense of humour, although he’s just returned to driving after too many speeding fines. Well what do you know!
The day starts with significant low cloud rolling across the mountains. It brightens quickly and by the time we reach the Homer Tunnel near Milford Sound, the sun is in full blaze and visibility is excellent. While we wait for the traffic lights to allow access to the tunnel every 15 minutes, local Mountain Parrots, the Kea start packing off rubber from car window surrounds. Evidently this is their party piece and hugely funny to those without cars!
A bus load of Japanese tourists run around the car park photographing the wanton destruction! Beyond the tunnel the weather is phenomenal and our tour boat takes us close up to waterfalls, New Zealand Fur Seals, very rare Fjordland Crested Penguins that have returned to Milford Sound to breed, and Bottle-nose Dolphins. The chances of sampling days like this in the Sound are rare indeed. This is normally one of the wettest places on Earth.
We can’t believe our luck because it’s been raining for the previous three days.
David opts for a helicopter flight that our guide Dave organises. The flight is superb, sticking close to the face of mountains surrounding the Milford Sound, including a brief landing on a snow covered col near the summit of Mt Tūtoko, which at 2,723 metres is the highest peak in the area. A steep dive over one of the cols churned the stomach! After a good traverse of the mountains, our pilot lands on the other side of the Homer Tunnel for David to be picked up by our guide Dave. Quite staggering! As we return to Te Anau, Dave drops us off at various beauty spots for walks and sight seeing. He even brews up tea and hot water for us, using his special billycan heater. What a delightful man and delightful day. We finish off the day with some excellent lamb chops that we bought yesterday for just over £2.00, absolutely delicious. What more could you want? Well not set off the fire alarm in our motel again, which we did - drat!
Unfortunately, the local sandflies have taken a
heavy toll on David’s hands and elbow. They are hugely swollen and he has to take Piriton to lower his body’s reaction to the bites
Day 27 - Wednesday 10th
From Te Anau we take route 95 south through Manapouri, then route 99 to Tuatapere that seems quite run down. Tutapere is known as the sausage capital of NZ but we don’t see any sausage factory. En route we stop at the historic Clifden timber suspension bridge. We are in the very southern part of New Zealand and the huge flocks of sheep with the Fjordland Mountains as a backdrop seems classic scenery. As we near Gemstone Beach, we pass trees bent almost horizontal by the impact of persistent very strong winds, yet today it’s almost still. The beach is nearly empty but we can’t find any real gemstones. We move on to Riverton, which was established by whalers in thev1860’s.
At Wallacetown, a huge Scottish Thistle is prominent in the town’s welcome sign. We pass quickly through Invercargill the second most southern city in the world, en route to Bluff, where at Stirling Point, we at the very south of Mainland New Zealand. We
also stop at Bluff Hill/Motupohue lookout that has great views all around, including Stewart Island. We won’t alas be visiting the Island.
We find a great motel, the 388 Tay in Invercargill with a huge living room, separate bedroom and all mod cons. Our host Dianna is very friendly and helpful.
Day 28 - Thursday 11th
Contrary to the weather forecast, the day is sunny although less warm than we’ve had recently. We decide to alter our itinerary and instead of going inland we head along the south to south east coast of New Zealand. We get off to a bad start because, according to the road map, the main road out of town starts near the centre of town. We also see another road, a short journey from our motel that doesn’t require the town journey. When we get to the turn off, there are no clear road signs. To cut a long story short, we get completely lost so it is back to the motel, where we pick up the correct road.
We eventually head through classic rural NZ sheep country. Within a short time we are passing through the Catlins
a little mentioned part of the country that includes beautiful undulating green hills, massive sheep farms, empty roads and beaches, some lovely inlets and waterfalls. David is not feeling too good today so we stop many times for him to grab a brief snooze.
At Dunedin, ‘Edinburgh of the South’ we pass Corstorphine, Princes Street, Elm Row and numerous other links to our home city.
Day 29 - Friday 12th
The rain is pouring down this morning so there’s no chance of a walk downtown to see the sights. We head along the northern perimeter road of the Otago Peninsula to Taiaroa Head, home to the Royal Albatross, the only mainland breeding ground of these beautiful and very rare seafaring birds. The bird’s habitat is well guarded and monitored and this has proven successful in preventing the bird’s survival from extinction. The information centre is well laid out with informative displays of the wildlife conservation taking place. There’s also a huge and impressive double carved totem of local Maori history.
David manages to get some good video of Royal Albatross’s soaring in the strong up draughts.
He also visits the Fort Taiaroa
gun emplacements established to head off threats from a Russian invasion in 1884, especially the centre-piece Armstrong Disappearing Gun, manufactured in our original home town of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1886. Our enthusiastic guide trots out loads of statistics regarding the gun and the forces that manned it.
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