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Published: February 27th 2011
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Sunday 20th – Queenstown again
Slow day today after so many early mornings and busy days on the Milford Track. Did a circular walk about town and then went up on the Gondala to the hill above Queenstown. Went on the Luge runs which were great fun even though Julia was less than gung-ho! We discussed the fact that we needed to go on a diet when we return to the UK which put Peter into such a panic he had to go and have the largest burger we have ever seen for lunch – see the pictures. After that we needed our afternoon nap.
Monday 21st – Te Anau
Drove across to Te Anau in the rain but that cleared up and the sun came out for a walk along the edge of the lake, through the wildlife park and on part of the Kepler track where Peter was very interested in all the workings of the HEP sluice gates. There are lots of other walks to do from here – we will add it to the list as a good place to come back to on our next trip to NZ!
Tuesday 22nd – Doubtful Sound
Today
we took a day trip to Doubtful Sound which started with a 50 minute boat ride across Lake Manapouri, then a 30 minute coach transfer over the Wilmot Pass to just reach Doubtful Sound. The weather was fantastic after yesterday’s rain so the views were clear and the waterfalls were running well. We had a 3 hour cruise on Doubtful Sound which is very beautiful although a little less dramatic than Milford Sound. Went out to look at the breakers on the Tasman Sea and saw the pod of dolphins in the distance cruising the edge of the Sound. On the way back over the pass we drove for 2km along the spiral tunnel which into the mountain to the viewing platform of the underground HEP station. We also passed the exit channels which were driven several miles through the mountain to discharge into Doubtful Sound. The HEP plant provides energy for a huge aluminium smelter plus 30% of NZ’s electricity!
Back in Te Anau, we heard the news of the earthquake in Christchurch just as we were about to book some accommodation there. We had not felt anything on Doubtful Sound but some of the glaciers near to Mount
Cook had calved off huge chunks of ice. So sent lots of emails and texts and changed our plans to head slowly to the east coast and stay well south of CC before our flight to Sydney on Friday.
Wednesday 23rd – Te Anau to Omarama
Quite a long drive today back to Queenstown and then up into Mackenzie Country which is the high plains behind the west coast mountains. The scenery is spectacular but bleak as not a lot grows up at this altitude. Stopped in Cromwell to look at the historic precinct near the lake which was moved there when the reservoir flooded the previous town – but it was really disappointing – a few sheds by the water out the back of town. However did get a look at the town’s sculpture which is a giant fruit salad – very tasteful. Left town again rapidly for lunch by the reservoir and then walked up to some old Gold mining works at Welshtown. Peter was testing the depth of the old mine shafts by throwing rocks down them and counting the seconds until they hit the bottom. As everyone knows (well Peter does), the formula to calculate
the depth is apparently s= ½ at2 (where s is distance in meters, a is acceleration (obviously the force of gravity i.e. 9.81m per second per second) and t is time in seconds). From this we were able to conclude that the shafts were pretty deep.
Arrived at our overnight stop Omarama which is a real one horse town where the horse is actually a merino sheep. The biggest attraction in town is the sheep shearing show every half hour but the cafe attached to this tourist mecca did great evening meals (our thanks go to the Lonely Planet guide which advertised this, without which we would have had to resort to the hotel buffet supper with two huge coach loads of tourists diverted from Christchurch).
Thursday 24th – Omarama to Timaru
Another mainly driving day across the high country. Stopped at some Clay cliffs just outside town which have formed over a couple of million years after a fault line lifted the river bed, then on through rolling hills with views of distant snow capped mountains. There are some huge dams, lakes and canals up here too which feed a series of HEP stations. Stopped off at the
Mt John observatory which is perched on a hill in a middle of an enormous basin. Did a circular walk around the hill and had lunch at the cafe with the best views - looking over the turquoise water and for miles across the plains.
We then headed towards the east coast town of Timaru, which was not the most exciting town but conveniently situated about 2 hours drive south of Christchurch. We got there early so as to have time to tackle the daunting task of condensing an entire car boot full of stuff into two suitcases and our hand luggage. So we got organised and filled the car up with petrol before checking into our motel and spending about two hours throwing out all unwanted paperwork, food etc and jumping up and down to successfully squeeze everything into our bags.
Took our last bottle of wine to the BYO Chinese restaurant to toast the end of our NZ adventure.
Friday 25th
Oh what a day! Packed up the car at about 9:30 and headed off so we had plenty of time to drive the 2 hrs to Christchurch, have lunch and check in for our 3:45 flight.
The car engine had coughed a little after we filled up with petrol yesterday and now all the engine warning lights appeared. We were just along the road from a Toyota garage so decided to pop in there and see if they could have a quick look. The mechanic plugged in the fault tester and then rather worryingly drove the car into the workshop. It was only now firing on two cylinders and he thought it may have diesel rather than petrol in the tank and he would have to drain, re-fill it and ensure there was no damage to the engine! We had checked the petrol receipt yesterday when it had started coughing and it had said ‘unleaded’ but of course could not now find it after our bag clear out session. So almost 1 hour after leaving our motel, we were back rummaging through the rubbish bins to see if we could find the receipt ( we didn’t have much else to do except watch mechanics dismantle the car ). After working down through a packed wheelie bin we found the receipt and feeling better that we could prove we hadn’t been stupid enough to fill the car
with diesel we returned to the garage. Sharon, the service receptionist, told us that they had found that the petrol had actually been contaminated with water and the back seat had now been removed from the car so that the tank could be drained. We then had a very anxious wait until about 12:30 when the car was finally put back together, refuelled and ready to go. The staff at the Timaru Toyota garage were fantastic – they had dropped everything to help us out, Sharon also rang Air New Zealand for us to tell them we might be slightly late checking in and also ran the petrol station to tell them about the problem. Obviously BP denied that it could possibly be anything wrong with the petrol. The garage only charged us $125! Which we thought very reasonable plus it cost us another $125 to refill the tank. So we now had a tense drive through the rain to Christchurch hoping we were in time to catch the plane.
Dumped the car in short term parking and ran to the check in desk 80 minutes before takeoff time. After checking in our seriously overweight bags (I think the story
of the petrol saved us an excess baggage charge ) we then had to take the car back to the rental company outside the airport and catch a shuttle bus back to the terminal. In the end we got to the gate just as they were announcing boarding. Phew!
Bye Bye NZ – see you again soon
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Sally
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the end
sounds like you'll be heading back to NZ again by your comments. Look forward to seeing you soon.x