Te Anau and Queenstown

On the way to Te Anau, we stopped by in Manapouri. Doubtful Sound is there, but you can only access it via a tour. We arrived in the village, approaching a junction to turn and carry on our way to Te Anau or turn into the village, and I had just said ah there isn’t much here, lets just get to Te Anau. But when we got up to the junction, we suddenly, and luckily, caught a glimpse of Lake Manapouri. The most stunning and awe inspiring lake I have ever set eyes on. It was so blue, so still, so clear, so tranquil and surrounded by mountains, it was breath taking. So we parked up and walked down to Frasers Beach, which runs round the edge of the lake, to take it in. I paddled in it, but it was freezing! Before long sand flies were bothering us, so we decided to move on. Sand flies are the most annoying things. The only flesh I had on show was my feet, and if I stood still for one second I’d have about 20 buzzing around both my feet. They give the most itchy bites, they are still driving me crazy four days on, glad I’ve got long nails at the moment! We got to the campsite in Te Anau which was lovely. We stayed in a really nice little cabin to have a break from camping. We were both so tired so rested up for a bit, and then grabbed some fish and chips for dinner. It was delicious. So good to eat something other than packets/tins/pot noodles.

Lake Manapouri

The next day we got up and slowly got ready for the day to do the Te Anau - Milford drive. Unfortunately it was another grey day but it wasn’t raining to we figured it’d still be better to do it that day. It was a 4 hour round trip (with out stops). Phil has done pretty much all the driving here, but he wanted me to drive this one as we’d read a lot about how dodgy it can be and risks of avalanches, etc! On the way, we stopped at Lake Mistletoe which was a fairly standard lake through a little wooded walk. Next stop was Mackay Creek which was a lovely river running along the base of the mountains, very green. The image reminded us a little bit of Yosemite. Mirror Lakes was after that, they had nice reflections the mountains, and we saw rainbow trout swimming around. We carried on for a bit and I suddenly saw a massive bird sat in a lay by so I pulled over to get a picture, and then it flew and landed on the roof! All of a sudden another 2 came out of no where and both got on the car, looking in the windows at us and then started pecking and trying to destroy bits of the car! Couldn’t believe it, the cheeky things. They were Keas and they are ‘Alpine parrots’, nice looking birds but (after reading an information board) realised they are notorious for being curious and destructive to human belongings! They are fully protected as the Southern New Zealand Alps are the only place that they are found to live. Before they did any serious damage I decided to pull away, we drove off with 2 still on the roof, eventually they flew off! We quickly realised they had chewed a bit of the rubber seal round the window, which now flaps in the wind! We got to a huge tunnel which goes straight through a mountain, but just before that we stopped and there was loads of snow and more Keas (on other people’s cars!). We got out and walked in the snow - me in flip flops still! As we went back to the car a Kea came over and landed on the roof, I was saying ‘No… No..’ ‘Off. Get, off!’ and pointing, like I was talking to my dogs! It didn’t listen, but I just opened my door and it flew off. We went through the tunnel which was really cool. Came out the other side to amazing views, and the steepest and windiest road down. It was great fun to drive, but I knew we had to get back up it later! We got to Milford eventually and saw Milford Sound, and Mitre peak, minus the peak though thanks to clouds. The whole drive was fantastic, right through the Alps. We walked up to a little view point, and saw a flightless bird called a Weka, who was also very curious! It was very sweet and would come as close as it dared to us, but as soon as we’d move and it’d run off, so we’d stop again and the same process kept happening. We didn’t go on a cruise or a tour or anything on the sound, so we just headed back to Te Anau. The driving was fine anyway, Phil would’ve been OK to do it. That pretty much took our full day so we just ate and caught up on the internet for the evening.

A Kea on the bonnet

We left for Queenstown the next morning, but stopped at the DOC’s bird life park on the way out to see some rare and protected birds. There didn’t seem to be many birds there but we saw the some cheeky Keas amongst other nice birds and then got on our way. Arriving in Queenstown, I immediately fell in love with it. It was just so lovely. The town hugs a beautiful lake and is surrounded by mountains. It has a real buzz about it. The hostel we checked into was great, and free soup every night! We got settled in and then went out to wander around the town. There were so many little cafes and lovely pubs and bars, wish our budget allowed us to enjoy them! I got stuck looking in a sweet shop and ended up spending more money than I should’ve on sweets.. We went down to the bay and absorbed the views, then just headed back up the hostel. The free soup was very tasty so we made the most of that!

We had a slow morning the next day, and went to town in search of a supermarket, but realised we’d have to drive to the nearest one, so we went out and did that. We got back to the hostel and made a lunch to go back out with, then headed up to the Skyline gondola! It was so steep and really scary dangling in the little cart the higher and higher we were getting, but the views were incredible! We stood at the top on the viewing deck for a while to take in all the surroundings, I felt pretty dizzy looking down! We were lucky to catch a dry spell whilst out, as it rained pretty much the rest of the day. We watched people do the ’luge’ a couple of times, and then went off on a little loop walk, which took us into the woods and up some steep hills. There was surprisingly an ‘extreme’ fire danger that day, despite it being very cool and damp. On the way back to the main area, we watched a couple of people take off the side of the hill hang gliding. It looked so much fun, but I think I’d still be too scared to do it! We got back on the gondola to go back down to town which was just as scary, and then went back to the hostel. We still haven’t really caught up on sleep so I had an afternoon snooze before it was soup time again!

Going up the sky gondola

We had an earlier start the next morning. I’d booked for us to go jet boating! I’d seen a few people doing it since being here and it looked great fun, so we were very excited to get going. After breakfast, we wandered down to the bay. We checked in for the boat we booked, but most people tended to just rock up and hope for the best rather than book in advance. We’d just seen the previous boat pull up and it was rammed, but no one was turning up wanting to do the time we’d booked, and they needed a minimum of 6 people to do the trip, so they said to come back the next hour and see if more people turned up. We went for a wander into the Queenstown Gardens to pass some time, it was a nice little walk, extremely windy though! We sat by a duck pond for a bit before heading back to the jetty. Still not enough people to take the trip, so they just told us they can book us onto an afternoon one which already had enough people booked on, so we’d be guaranteed to go then. So we went with that and went for a wander round the shops before heading back to the hostel for a bite to eat. So, back to the jetty we go, and we get given some gear to put on, a huge rain coat and life jacket. It is so windy now, the lake is very, very choppy! We all boarded the boat and we got going, we were warned it’d be pretty rough while he went across the lake but once we got to the river it’d be calmer. Well rough it definitely was! The jet boat bumped over the waves and the wind blew all the spray all over us, which was just like having a huge wind turbine blowing crushed ice at us! The wind was so strong, we were going so fast and we were getting so cold and wet I couldn’t breathe or even see where we were going! I just kept laughing, for some reason I found it hilarious! We turn off the lake eventually and really got going. It was extremely intense, and I loved it. We did a few spins and he’d take us unnervingly close to bridges and trees, etc. But best of all was the scenery, it was just beautiful and lovely to really be out on the river. At times we’d get some spray on us which was absolutely freezing, or he’d go so fast we couldn’t open our eyes and it felt like the skin was ripping off of our faces!! But over all it was fantastic. We were pretty cold by the time we got back, and they let us go down to the underwater observatory to dry off. That was a nice bonus as we saw lots of fish swimming around in the lake, and we saw the photos the company had taken of us all before hand, but we decided not to purchase any! We both had very wind burnt faces for the rest of the day. We had pretty much done all we’d came to do in Queenstown, so we just went to the internet café for the afternoon until it was time for soup.