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Published: November 19th 2008
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Our journey was hampered by a distinct lack of road signs and bad weather. As we gained altitude and dusk approach it started snowing, this was all we needed. We finally found a free parking area at Manapouri. We locked ourselves inside the van to ride out the storm.
In the morning we headed off without even a coffee for Te Anau. Within 15minutes we were parked along side the deep blue waters at Lake Te Anau, what a great place for breakfast. Our mission today was to explore the Milford Sound Fiord. After our porridge and coffee we hit the road for a 2hr drive deep into the Fiordlands. The scenery here is incredible, huge plateau’s with crystal clear rivers surrounded by cliffs and mountain ranges that scrape the skies. On several lookout points the native mountain parrot, the Kea inquisitively greeted us. This is the most intelligent of the parrot family and always a popular performer for the weary traveller. The seem to like the taste of the rubber seals on car doors, even in preference to the kiwi fruit we offered!
We thought we might have to hang around fro a day to get a booking
Manapouri
Leaving point for the Doubtful Sound for the cruise on the Milford Sound. Luckily Pili found a remembered we had a 2 for 1 offer form our JUCY rental. Cruize Milford was the name of the ship and we boarded with 20mins.
The cruise took approx an hour and a half gliding over the 1000ft deep fiord, steep cliffs with multiple cascading waterfalls and even some New Zealand Seal Lions basking on the warm rocks. The highlight for me personally was two rare New Zealand Crested Penguins, what a treat. The only downside to the trip was the icy and ferocious winds battering us while on deck, it made taking pictures a little interesting.
I got talking to a really cool Canadian who was on a trip with his wife to celebrate 25yrs of marriage. Cully and Jackie were from Ontario and they owned a large timber export business. We hit it off immediately (he was a old hippy I think) he’d chartered a private plane to visit the fiords for the day and was flying straight back to Queenstown, what a way to travel eh! Cully said that if we made it to Queenstown the next day he’d like to take us out
Lake Te Anua
Early morning for dinner. He was very interested in some of stuff we talked about (Mom, Paul, Mark & Ian you can guess where the conversation went) Jackie had lived for several years in Afghanistan and I think she was quite surprised when it was apparent that I understood what was going on there, which is quite different to what the media is telling us.
Well we were planning Queenstown as our next stop so it was a date. Actually we’d have walked it for a sit down meal in a resturaunt!
Very happy with our days adventure we headed back to Te Anau and a little side road we’d discovered earlier in the day when we pulled over for a coffee, Henry’s Creek, right next to Pleasant Bay on Middle Fiord. When we arrived it wasn’t quite as it had been that morning. When earlier we’d stopped for coffee, the sun was out and the lake was deep blue in colour and like a mirror. Now it was slate grey with crashing waves and the wind was shaking the van. Oh well, we sheltered the van the best we could out of the wind and made the best of
it. A hot meal and sleep and things would be better in the morning.
When we woke the storm had eased a little, we had a quickie breakfast and hit the road for Queenstown. Pili did some of the driving today; I wasn’t feeling too hot and needed to sleep a little more as I’d had a restless night. On the road to Queenstown we passed the Red Tussock Reserve, it lookedlike Tina Turners wig shop!!!!
Queenstown is set on the shores of Lake Wakatipu. The steep mountain sides surrounding the lake are scattered with million dollar ski chalets. It’s all extremely picturesque and geared for the ski season.
We booked into a Top 10 campsite, 2 minutes from Cully and Jackie’s hotel. This was the most expensive camp we’ve stayed at, $45.00 for the night, oh well it had to be done.
I spent the afternoon checking current affairs on the internet. The site wanted $15.00 an hour to use their service, HA, thanks to Pete’s G3 gadget I tapped in for free.
At 6pm we met Cully and Jackie at their very plush hotel. They immediately invited us up for a bottle of
Lake Te Anua
We've just had breakfast wine and I showed them some of my photos. Cully had insisted I bring along my laptop for this purpose.
They’d booked us into an expensive Thai resturaunt and insisted it was their treat, we did protest a little, but not too much as this was way out of our budget. We had a fantastic meal and a really cool conversation. These guys are some of the nicest people we’ve met so far. They were obviously very wealthy but in no way flash, in fact they were both very humble and down to earth. We now have a genuine open invitation to go a stay of their boat on Lake Ontario which we will have to do. We even left the resturaunt with a dogging bag as Cully had ordered way to much, he’d gone to the menu twice the food was that good.
At 10pm we said goodbyes and a sincere thank you for a wonderful evening; they had a really early flight the next day and needed to sleep.
In the morning we used the facilities at the campsite and made cheese on toast for breakfast, it’s the simple things you miss most of all.
We checked out at 10am and headed for the famous Queenstown Gondola ride up the mountain for the panoramic views of the lake and town. For $22 each we slowly climbed the steep slope to the top and had some breathtaking views as our reward.
Back down in the town we were starving and followed the recommendation our friend and went to have a FERN BURGER. $9 each and the best burger we’d ever had. One problem, we shouldn’t have ordered two plus fries, it was way too much and for the rest of the afternoon we were painfully full.
The weather was again turning for the worse, the morning had been bright and sunny, now the winds were really battering the place, I was glad we were off the Gondola.
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Jim
non-member comment
Tussock pix
Hi John, we are repositioning our little country hotel in Otago on the way to the Dunstan Trail the goldminers used in the 1800s. We want to put together a composite image that we will use as a mural. One of your tussock pictures might fit the background. Could you let me know what sort of arrangement you would be happy with. As an early indication we might photoshop overlays like trudging miners or a clydesdale dray. Thanks. Jim