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Published: December 30th 2009
Well, after two weeks of life on the farm, we found ourselves in need of a little...escape. A little mountain scenery. A little natural wilderness. Compound that with the fact that New Zealand basically shuts down for several weeks over the holidays - I mean literally SHUTS DOWN - even the banks! We've found ourselves in the unfortunate position of needing to set up everything (i.e., auto payments for our apartment from the bank, turning our power on, purchasing a bed, which we still haven't done yet, searching for jobs)...but alas, nothing is open, everyone is on holiday, and all is quiet on the western front. So, we decided...if everyone else is on holiday, why not us, too? Certainly nothing else to do in the meantime that's of any real use (who needs jobs or a place to live anyway??)...
So off we went, on Saturday afternoon, to visit some new friends in Gore, about an hour west of here. We stayed with a lovely British-turned-Aussie couple named Peter and Christine, where we spent the evening exchanging travel stories and watching strange Aussie comedies on TV. Sunday after our meeting for worship we headed to another local family's home, Glenn
and Ann (and their adorable little kids Taze and Brianna, whose thick accents we can't begin to understand!) where we bonded over lunch (and dinner) and ended up staying til after 10pm that evening, just chatting, sharing photos, and watching Disney movies with the kids. It was a very chill weekend and we made some fantastic new friends! Gore itself is a quaint town, bigger than Milton or Balclutha...we may end up moving over their way if we can find work there (looking much more promising than the area we're in now). Gore is considerably more commercialized and has a KFC, McDonald's, Subway, Pizza Hut, a new day spa, movie theater, even an ice skating rink! (I know you're all laughing, but this is actually a
really big deal). It's also apparently the trout fishing capital of the world - not being a fisherman, I'll take their word for it.
😊
Monday morning we set off for the western half of the "Southern Scenic Route" that loops around the bottom of the south island. We left Gore and headed south to Invercargill, the southernmost city in the country, then turned west and headed along the ocean through beautiful seaside
farmland. We came up over a hill and literally stopped the car - a huge glittering bay opened before us, and on the far side stood soaring snow-capped peaks
right on the sea. I'd heard there were places where you could see such a scene, but until you actually SEE it, you don't think it's possible. We made our way down to the coast of the bay and to a place called Monkey Island, which you can walk to at low tide. As fate would have it, it was low tide, so we kicked off our shoes, waded through the frigid ankle-deep water, and climbed the small walkway to the top of the island. The view was amazing...crystal clear water, huge seaside boulders and sheer cliffs, snowy mountains off in the distance, and lots of crazy people SWIMMING as if the next stop south is
not Antarctica (which
is the next stop, by the way!). Ah, our pathetic Floridian blood.
Fifteen minutes down the coast was the highly-recommended Gemstone Beach, where a small river dumps out the most beautiful, smooth river rocks of every color you can imagine. We scoured the coast for half an hour, collecting rocks of
green, red, purple, orange, black...I'm all set to do hot stone massage now ha!
From there the road turned back inland and due north, with green rolling hills to our east and sharp snowy-peaked Alps to our west. We cruised through farmland, marshland, over tiny one-laned bridges, past gurgling brooks...and arrived at the stunning Lake Manapouri, just south of our final destination of Te Anau. We strolled the lakeshore and admired a local artist painting the scenery, then shook our heads at the wackos out there swimming and waterskiing as if it were a hot summer day (oh wait...it WAS a summer day. Too bad the water practically had ice floating in it)! Upon pulling out our Lord of the Rings guidebook, we discovered that the peaks on the opposite bank were used to film shots of the Fellowship leaving Rivendell...and turned the page to discover that dozens of scenes were filmed in the immediate area!! We vowed to make the next day a LOTR-scenery-hunting day.
We arrived late afternoon in the lakeside resort town of Te Anau, where we very fortunately were able to find accommodation for the night (most everything was booked solid for the big
New Zealand's Classic Dessert - Pavlova
Whipped egg whites and sugar, slathered with homemade whipped cream, baked to a frothy crisp, and covered with kiwifruit. YUM!!!holiday week). Lakeside Backpackers Lodge became our home for the night, right on the shore of Lake Te Anau. Fabulous! We headed out to the main street and stumbled upon the small but beautiful "Fiordland Cinema." A helicopter pilot got the idea a few years back to hunt down the cameramen that filmed Lord of the Rings, and hired them to do a short film of aerial shots of the south island. The 30-minute film is set to beautiful classical music (no narrative) and literally takes your breath away as the chopper soars over waterfalls, fiords, glaciers, and rocky coasts. We loved it so much we bought a DVD copy, so anyone who would like to see it when we arrive back at home is more than welcome! Dinner Monday night was at a little Italian place where Jeremy was thrilled to get gluten-free pizza, followed by a sunset stroll along Lake Te Anau (at about 10pm ha)!
Tuesday morning we awoke and toyed with the idea of heading up to Milford Sound, another two hours north and supposedly one of the most beautiful sights in the country. I called the few lodges in the area, though, and discovered
that they were booked solid all week...which we figured as much. So we settled for hiking along the lake through beautiful temperate rainforest, then spent the afternoon hunting the spots in the area where the movies were filmed. We were quite successful at finding many of them, even though it typically involved rough dirt roads that rattled our poor little Toyota to the core...but it survived! I captioned the photos of the filming spots we found for those of you interested in that kind of thing! I also had a ridiculously delicious lunch in Te Anau consisting of "Venison Pie" - a croissant-like pastry filled with tender venison stew. I felt like a jerk for eating it in front of my poor gluten-free husband, but he was a good sport about it as he sufficed with lunchmeat and potato chips. I think venison is my new favorite meat - YUM!!
The weather started to turn blustery and fiercely cold right as we began heading back towards Milton (perfect timing), and it continues to howl outside and dump torrential rain (followed of course by short periods of sunny calm, then it starts right back up again). Luckily we had gorgeous
weather for the three or four days of our little excursion! If all goes well, in 48 hours we'll be moving into our little flat in Balclutha...and we'll see what happens from there!
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jennifer (sister)
non-member comment
Wow!
Well i truely enjoyed those photos, and they are all completely recognizable from the movies! Glad to see you all are having a great time, Jeremy, like the shorter hair, and Amy, you fabulous in the red shirt! Do they have jobs for ex-goverment employees there???