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Published: April 10th 2005
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DAY 12 : REST DAY DUNEDIN--> TE ANAU (BUS)
Washing in the morning - used our bikes as a clothes line. Went into the city to update blog and see if we could catch a bus to the west side of NZ - we're kind of behind schedule so we figure this should give us a couple of extra days to try and make it North.
Everything turned out to be a roaring success, with a bus leaving at 2pm. DV even had time to see if he could get some chocolate from the
cadbury factory just across from where we were catching a bus. He would have had to do a tour before he could buy anything which seems stupid. So he went across the street to Countdown (supermarket) and bought 3blocks of cadbury chocolate on special.
Our bus driver was, as DV suspected, a
Bus Nazi and just jammed our bikes into the bus. We're not very religious men, but we prayed that day - praying our bikes would at least be servicable by the time we reached Te Anau.
The bus trip was a little boring, but, our prayers were answered as the bikes
were put together again in fine condition....did some camp cooking and went to bed.
DAY 13 : TE ANAU --> MANAPOURI (BUS) --> DOUBTFUL SOUND (FERRY AND BUS) --> TE ANAU (BUS)
Today started early as we had to catch the bus at 7am. It was raining again, which didn't look good for the cruise we were going on. The bus driver gave us hope, however, as he pointed out that the sea plane on the lake was pointed south, meaning there was a southerly and so things should clear up pretty soon.
Luckily for us he was spot on. The first ferry brought us to a place where we would have to jump onto a bus. The bus then wove its way deeper into
Fiordland, letting us out every now and then to take some happy snaps. There had been a fair bit of rain the day before (there's supposedly 8m of rain fall each year in Fiordland) so there were heaps of temporary waterfalls. The mountains themsleves were unlike anything either of us had ever seen - rising up straight out of the water, covered in trees even on faces at angles of 80
i told you there were dolphins
despite a few dozen photos, we didn't get a good shot of them doing their flips...you'll just have to trust me. and 90deg. There had been an
earthquake around there in 2003 which led to lots of "tree slides", where a tree would just loose its grip and slide down the face of the mountain, taking many more with it.
The next ferry out through doubful sound was even more impressive - words can't really describe it so i'll let the 100 or so photos do the talking.
There was also a pretty cool dolphin display. I never thought
dolphins did flips out of the water other than in a marine park/show of some sort. But they do, as the dolphins we saw proved.
On the bus trip back from Doubtful Sound we had time to visit the
power station - hydroelectric. So the bus went down into the tunnel underground and we were let out into the station viewing platform. It was all pretty weird as it didn't really fit into the "enjoy the wonders of nature" type theme that the day had been based on so far. And that huge power plant was mainly being used to power Comalco - manufacturer of aluminium stuff - seemed a bit extravagant.
Anyway, it was a fantastic tour
and has whetted my appetite to return one day and go trekking through the mountains on foot.
BBQ for dinner - a bit of a change. Then we decided that our
ice cream levels were getting dangerously low, so we bought a 2Litre tub of mint choc chip ice cream and polished it off that night over a movie in the lounge area of the caravan park (movie was Catch me if you can).
We slept well that night as our ice cream levels had returned to normal.
DAY 14 : TE ANAU --> MAVORA 68km
We didn't have long to go today so we slept in a bit. It was half an hour or so before the sun came out to thaw our hands and feet. At the turnoff to go to
Mavora Lakes we ran across an Englishman cycle tourist coming the opposite way. He looked to be going slow and swerving all over the road. When he came to our lunch stop we found out why.
I haven't got good news for you. The road's been graded and there are these loose rocks evrywhere, i broke 2 spokes along the way. It's just like little marbles on the road. But you lads have shocks so you might be alright...
So yeh, we took off, and the roads weren't that great, but i think he must have just had a rough day, 'cause
it wasn't too bad - we had a tail wind & he had a head wind which may have changed perspectives.
There weren't any cars on this road and it was nice scenery so the ride wasn't that tough.
Mavora lakes was very cool. It was still warm enough to go for a swim/scrub so i did just that.
Toasted sandwiches plus indian rice & vegetable one pot concoction left us quite full and ready for hibernation as the temperature dropped rapidly. The ranger guy that came by to collect fees said
"i hope you've got good sleeping bags 'cause it got down to -10degC here last week". I cringed as i remembered my sleeping bag limits: +5degC comfort --> 0degC extreme. Looks like i'll be wearing my socks tonight!!
DAY 15 : LAKE MAVORA --> QUEENSTOWN
We were headed for
Queenstown today (or, as i called it maybe 50 times - Christchurch). We awoke after our 12 hour hibernation and tried to defrost quickly so that we could make the 12:50 ferry into Queenstown.
The roads, however, weren't crash hot again so we didn't make very good time. We crossed a couple
of decent Fords
(!) - one was about 20cm deep at its deepest part but i thought i could still ride across it. i got up some speed and plunged across the 4m wide ford. I made it all the way across without falling off, however, because i was going quite fast (much faster than the ford i forded 10min ago) the spray from either side of my front wheel wet my shoes anyway. It wasn't too bad though - the sun was out again today.
We were going to miss the ferry by half an hour or so, so we stopped by the lake ("whites Bay" apparently) and had lunch.
By the time we made it to Walter Peak we had 40min or so to wait around in the sun for the next ferry. I can't think of many places i'd rather be waiting around in the sun.
The
steam boat (ferry) was very cool, as you were able to stand on a little viewing platform and watch the guy shovel coal into the huge furnaces.
Half an hour or so later we had arrived in Queenstown, full of helicopters, parasailers, paragliding and even a
parasailer who bungee jumped from the parasail once they were high enough...crazy.
We looked around at the info centre for stuff to do tomorrow but nothing realy took our interest.
We decided instead to spend some more money on
food - we always do that - food is good!
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anonymous
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Hey guys, The photos look amazing - I can't really imagine what it must feel like to actually be in those landscapes. Hope yr icecream levels, and the night-time temperatures, stay high. Love Kathryn - Kathryn