South Island day 13: Te Anau to Invercargill

We had another day where the weather was mostly the opposite from what the rest of the country has been having – apart from a few spits just before lunchtime, we didn’t see any rain today. But it was quite windy and the wind was very cold.

After a week of being kind of stuck (in a nice way) in room 29 at the Lakeside Motel, Te Anau, we were on the move again. The day began by packing up the car, picking up the bikes from Te Anau Downs, and hitting the road. We took the ‘Southern Scenic’ route from Te Anau to Invercargill via Tuatapere and Riverton – SH99.


View at Te Waewae Bay. It was a lot colder than the photo looks!

We arrived in Invercargill at around lunchtime, and decided to drive to Bluff and have lunch there. Bluff is either the end or the start of SH1, depending on how you look at it.


Us at Bluff


Plaque at Bluff that kind of sums up our trip so far!


Today was to be the only day we would have to look around Invercargill, so we visited the Southland Museum (with tuatara enclosure) and Hayes hardware store before heading out for a short-ish bike ride to test our current state of riding ability. Bearing in mind that at the motel we have been given an accessible unit for guests with mobility challenges, complete with disabled carpark, a lounge the size of my entire house (which turns out to be quite good for storing bikes in), and a bathroom that is so big it echoes. We managed just under 8 km on our bikes, which I thought was pretty good seeing as the average temperature was around 8°C.


Not everything in the hardware store is for sale, but many things are...


Specialised hammers


Custom bolts


Tuatara at Southland Museum


Tomorrow we have another early start as we are going to Stewart Island for a day trip.

South Island day 12: Manapouri, Doubtful Sound

Today dawned cloudy again, but we didn’t really get to see this until we were on the road, heading for Lake Manapouri on a day trip to Doubtful Sound. We had 7 changes of transport through the day, which was good for ticking the boxes for Raewyn to ‘keep moving around and don’t sit for long periods’.

Despite the low cloud at Manapouri, Doubtful Sound itself had fantastic weather. The wind was actually behind us as we cruised out of the Sound, and we were able to get some very cool photos. We saw a number of NZ fur seals on some large rocks at the entrance to the Sound, which was the only place we were really affected by the swell. It was incredible to think how deep the water below us was – and we certainly felt dwarfed by the landscape and awed by its remoteness.

On the way back we visited the Manapouri power station, which was really interesting.

The highlight of the day was probably the weather – last time I was here (which was on a family holiday when I was a teenager) it was pretty grey and rainy with low cloud.

Here are a selection of photos from the day:


Lake Manapouri


Doubtful Sound










NZ fur seals






View from Wilmot Pass




Manapouri power station tunnel

South Island day 11: Te Anau

Today marked the first day that we were able to get back on track with our original holiday plan: ‘chillax in Te Anau, do laundry, and visit the glow worm caves’. We did the laundry a couple of days ago, (a) so we’d have something to wear and (b) to fight off the boredom. So after a leisurely morning we headed down for the glow worm trip. Although, as our guide pointed out, glow worms are not worms - they are the larvae stage of the insect’s life cycle, so really they should be called ‘glow maggots’ but that doesn’t have the same kind of ring.

We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the caves but it was pretty dark anyway. The route follows the river that has hollowed out the cave system, up to the ‘glow worm grotto’ where you get in a boat and continue on in the dark. We found this a bit uncomfortable but it wasn’t for too long.

The weather today was cloudy with rain on and off during the day. This made for some very cool cloud strata all around the lake.





Tomorrow we take a longer trip to Doubtful Sound, via Lake Manapouri and the power station there.


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P.S. Here is how my knee looks today. It is not oozing any more, which is good.

South Island day 9-10: Te Anau

The days are kind of blurring together... similar weather (cloudy with the sun coming out later), similar activities. On Sunday we visited the local Baptist church, which was good to talk with other believers. As it turned out, I had already met one lady there because she was working at the Real Journeys office when I went in to cancel our Milford Sound cruise. Small world (or just small town?)

After that we visited the much-talked-about local pie shop. Yum. We ate our pies by the lake and went for a wander and a round of mini golf. The rest of the time has been spent relaxing around the motel.





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Today we went for a walk around town in the morning, and paid another visit to the physio in the afternoon. Raewyn’s back is much improved and provided she takes things slowly we should be able to carry on with our plans. Which are:

Tomorrow (Tuesday) – Te Anau glow worm caves
Wednesday – Manapouri & Doubtful Sound day trip
Thursday – Pick up our bikes and drive to Invercargill. We might try going for a short ride when we get there, to see how we manage on bikes again
Friday – Day trip to Stewart Island
Saturday – Drive to Dunedin, via the Catlins
Sunday – Start the Otago rail trail: train to Clyde, ride to Alexandra

South Island day 8: Te Anau

Nothing much to report. Raewyn is a bit more mobile today – we went for a walk around the block this morning and didn’t need to rely on the kindness of strangers to get her home. We also did a load of washing and drove a few blocks away to get fish and chips for tea!

South Island day 7: Te Anau

In our original plans for today, we would have walked 16.5 km from Clinton Hut to Mintaro Hut. Instead we began by walking the 100 metres from our motel to the DOC office, to organise a refund and cancel the search party. I’m not joking about the search party: when we arrived, I barely managed to get a few words out about ‘we were meant to be on the track yesterday’ before the lady interrupted and said ‘are you the two girls that didn’t make it?’ and then ran off – literally – to tell her co-worker, ‘ring Trevor and tell him they’ve turned up here’. She then told me they were about to ring the police as the next step in their search procedure. So on the one hand it’s nice to know we were missed; on the other it made me feel really stupid for not calling them yesterday to tell them what was going on (although one would have expected the boat crew to have done so). And of course, just another kick in the guts that we’ve missed out on doing the Milford track, this holiday at least.

By this stage it was time to head back to the medical centre for Raewyn’s physio appointment. Just as we arrived her back gave her another twinge, worse than yesterday. She now has strapping tape on her back, another appointment for Monday, and some reassurance that things could get back to normal reasonably soon. She has some exercises to try and do, and we’ll aim to go for some short walks over the weekend, i.e. round the block.

It rained this afternoon for about 10 minutes – the only precipitation we’ve seen since the night we arrived in Franz Josef, which is amazing considering the bad weather that the rest of the country has been getting!

Here are some photos from the casualty department:


My hands


Raewyn, flat out

South Island day 6: Milford track, Te Anau

We had booked to stay in Te Anau Downs rather than Te Anau because it was closer to where the boat left for the track in the morning, and the lodge there offered free carparking for Milford walkers. It was a nice, quiet location with a decent sized room, which was great for packing our packs in! We had hoped to have a lie-in, but because of the events of the day before we were delayed leaving Queenstown and didn’t get to Te Anau to pick up our tickets before the DOC office closed. So we had to drive back and pick them up in the morning. That gave us just enough time to make lunch, pack the car with everything we weren’t going to need, move it to the carpark, and walk down to the boat. The only hiccup came when Raewyn came to get her pack out of the car, when she felt a twinge in her back. We made the 15-minute walk down to the boat. Once on board she had some ibuprofen, but it didn’t really help. The boat ride was about 1 hr 15, which gave us plenty of time to assess our options. We had already decided the night before that we could take the boat and probably walk the 2 hrs to Clinton Hut. Then, if I couldn’t continue because of my jaw and/or knee, we could come back the next day and catch the boat back out. By the time we arrived at the wharf, it was obvious we weren’t going to be walking anywhere that day. So we just had to sit there and watch everyone else disembark, and console ourselves with the knowledge that the Milford Track will still be there next year.


View from the boat


The closest we got to the Milford Track

We took the same boat back, and the crew phoned ahead to book us an appointment at the local medical clinic. A couple who were on board coming back as well offered to give me a lift to the lodge, so I went with them and picked up the car, and went back to collect Raewyn. Then it was off to the medical centre. Who would have thought we’d see two in two days? After that it was sorting out all the necessities, such as a place to stay for the night (thankfully, the motel we had booked for 3 days in Te Anau after Milford had a room available), and picking up Raewyn’s prescription happy drugs.


Two medical centres in as many days...

So now we are having a different kind of holiday – one where we have to take each day as it comes. It seems like we are taking 1 Cor. 12:26 too literally – ‘If one part [of the body] suffers, every part suffers with it’!

For the meantime though, we have a whole week in Te Anau, to enjoy as much as we are able to, given the circumstances.


Te Anau sunset: something we can enjoy

South Island day 5: Wanaka to Te Anau Downs (via Queenstown)

We took the Crown Range road (via Cardrona) from Wanaka to Queenstown. It looked shorter in distance than the route through Cromwell, although with roadworks etc. it may well have been similar in terms of time. In any case the road is quite interesting, with a series of hairpin zigzags at Arrowtown where it rejoins with SH6.

We got to Queenstown just after 10, and had an ‘interesting’ time finding a carpark. But the weather was, once again, perfect for biking and we scored a 4-hr unlimited pass to take us and the bikes up in the gondola for $39.


Bikes on the gondola


Admiring the view on the way up

We started with Hammy’s track, one of the few labelled ‘easy’. However it was more technical than Dean’s Bank which was classed ‘intermediate’ (which, based on my experience at Wainui and Makara, was classed correctly). There were a number of jumps that could catch you out if you weren’t expecting them or were going too fast. Being all downhill tracks, it is easy to build up speed! And lots of banked corners, some of which were lots of fun. And lots of rutty bits, which weren’t fun at all.


Bridget


Raewyn

Once at the bottom, we caught the gondola back up to do Hammy’s again down to the midway clearing, and then take another ‘easy’ track called Thundering Goat. We were maybe halfway down, with Raewyn going on ahead and stopping to take photos of me coming down, when she called out ‘you’ll like the next one’. So I headed down, rounded the banked corner I could see, then zoomed past her. Whoa, a jump, with a flat top. Ok (just)! Then all of a sudden, before I could slow down enough, another jump, the back wheel came up, the bike was vertical and I was toppling over the handlebars. Pretty much all of my other crashes have been sideways, so this was a first for me. I could see the ground coming up to meet me so I turned my head, let go of the handlebars and landed on my hands and the side of my face.


Last photo before the crash (jump in foreground)

It was probably a good thing it happened on a jump, rather than a flat part of the track, because after the collision I sort of slid down the hill a bit which likely lessened the impact and meant I didn’t break a wrist. At the time the worst thing was it felt like I had dislocated my jaw. We walked down the rest of the track to the 4WD road, which came out onto a street. We had seen the Queenstown medical centre on our way driving around looking for a carpark, so headed there. They took X-rays of my jaw and patched up the grazes on my knee and my chin (the other knee and the hand I landed most heavily on were just bruised). It turned out nothing was broken, nothing was dislocated; just some possible cartilage bruising around the joint. When we left 2 ½ hours later I was able to talk and open my mouth a bit, although my jaw still felt like it needed to click back into place (the same as after I had my wisdom teeth out).


Getting patched up at Queenstown medical centre

The rest of the drive to Te Anau Downs was mostly uneventful, apart from having to stop for a house. A house being moved on the back of a truck, that is.


Wide load follows. Indeed.

South Island day 4: Wanaka

The weather today dawned a bit chilly but otherwise perfect for biking. Completely the opposite to the weather report over the rest of the country...

After stopping at the police station to report the driver we saw yesterday (and hand over the photographic evidence we had collected) we headed off along the bike path that follows the lakefront, leading to the outlet track that follows the Clutha River. The poplars were in the process of losing their leaves, which made for very pretty scenery (and probably cost us about half an hour stopping for photos!).


Riding along the 'outlet track'


The Clutha River


Our destination was Dean’s Bank track, rated as one of the best in Wanaka. At 11 km it is quite long, and had a nice flow to it, although some parts seemed to take a while to get from A to B – a little too reminiscent of the Taupo cycle challenge course for my liking, but it had some really good sections with steep banked corners that were lots of fun.


Raewyn: brave


Bridget: nuts


Once around the track was enough for us so we headed back to the motel for a shower. Then off to Puzzling World, where we got lost in the maze and wandered around the optical illusion rooms.


A good place to get lost


Just when we thought we were the same height... we tried the Ames room illusion.


You’ve heard of toilet humour, how about a toilet optical illusion?


Tomorrow we head to Queenstown for some more mountain biking, before heading to Te Anau to get ready for the Milford Track (i.e. picking up hut passes, and packing). So far the weather forecast is looking promising, with no rain forecast for the first couple of days on Milford. Hopefully we will have good weather for crossing Mackinnon Pass... that’s all either of us really cares about!

South Island day 3: Franz Josef to Wanaka

When we opened the curtains this morning, we saw something that we couldn’t see last night – the glacier. Although it was still drizzling on and off, the cloud had lifted considerably. This actually made it near-perfect weather for our glacier ‘Ice explorer’ trip – not too hot. Raewyn and I both had turns sitting in the front of the helicopter – me going up, and her coming back. We were all jammed in there, and within five minutes we were on the ice.

Our guide turned out to be from Upper Hutt and was really chatty. After putting crampons on, we climbed up part of the ice fall, with the guide pointing out various features along the way. There were quite a few groups up there, but I guess part of that was because the trips scheduled for the day before had been cancelled due to poor visibility.

Here are some of my favourite photos from the trip:


Crampons on!


Climbing through the ice fall


Raewyn feeling a little bit blue but otherwise enjoying herself immensely


Having a break from taking photos


Hoping the crevasse doesn't close


Ice sculptures - looking up


Raewyn's second ride in a helicopter (the first one being a couple of hours before)


We had lunch back at Franz Josef before hitting the road and driving over the Haast Pass to Wanaka. The sun made a brief appearance and the scenery was spectacular as always. Unfortunately we were distracted from the scenery by a very, very bad driver (who, yes, happened to be Asian).


No, he hadn't just finished passing us. Yes, he was trying to pass the vehicle in front, on a blind corner. And nearly got wiped out by a car coming the other way.


Tomorrow we are ditching the car and taking to our bikes for the first time on the trip – heading for Dean’s Bank, Clutha river trail, and we’ll see what happens after that.