Booking for Milford Sound and driving to Queenstown (28th Feb)

So it was a BIG mistake cause when I called them this morning that place had already gone with the next availability being 3 days after, too late for me. So instead I tried for Milford Sound overnight, they had 1 place on Sunday night, so I went through the process of trying to book it online but as usual I was trying to do too many things at the same time and managed to close the booking window half way through the booking and of course when I went back on to the site it was fully booked! Are you getting a good idea as to how the morning was going?? So, I called up the tour company and explained what I had done to them in the hope that on their system it would still be showing 1 spare place.......but no, as far as they were concerned it was fully booked!! Feeling a little disheartened about the whole thing I wasn’t sure of my next move except that I needed to check out of the hostel. As a last chance saloon I headed off to the I-site to see if they could help me out and fortunately by the time I got there my ‘half’ booking had cancelled itself out and there was a spare place again on the overnight Milford Sound and it was MINE!

Having bagged the last bunk on the boat I then headed off down to Queenstown which is the extreme sports capital of the world (apparently)! After Wanaka though I wasn’t really that keen on staying there so made a plan to just pass through.

On the way to Queenstown I came across Arrowtown which is an interesting little place that sprang up in the 1860s following the discovery of gold in the Arrow River. I had made a plan, and a booking, to head off to Te Anau for the night before my Milford Sounds cruise so it was just a fleeting visit here really before making my way to Queenstown.

Queenstown actually had quite a nice feel to it despite its size; I wandered around the main town area before making my way to the underwater observatory on the quay. Now that was great fun, its run by the same people who run the jet boat and they’ve constructed this underwater viewing area to see some of the life in the lake. They have a coin operated fish food dispensing machine which was great. There were loads of fish and even an eel there but the best sight was the teal ducks which would dive down 4 or 5 meters each time food was released and steal it from the fish! They were super cute and actually managed to get quite a lot of the food off of the fish.

The diving duck!

Other life in the lake

Heading out of Queenstown finally I see sheep (!) although still not as many as I was hoping, I am at least seeing some. I allowed around another 2 hours for the drive to Te Anau, my directions to the hostel were that it was about 2 km out of town, somehow though, I think it was all the driving I was doing, I managed to drive

around 10 km out of town before realising my mistake! Tonight’s hostel is on a large estate run by Bob and Maxine gaining its name Bob and Maxines backpackers (!).

A great place though with everything you could possibly need including a copy of each of the Lord of the Rings movies! Each hostel seems to have a set (maybe they’re given out by the movie makers as advertisement) and it seems to be the favourite movie for everyone I meet!

Sheep!

Wanaka (27th Feb)

My plan is to do some good hiking today and despite the hostel manager saying today is meant to be rain, so far it looks lovely.

There are quite a few walks in the area but one in particular stands out as being good, the Rob Roy glacier walk, taking in mountains, glaciers and waterfalls. Sounds lovely, the only thing is it’s around an hours drive away which I hadn’t anticipated, so after some deliberation I decided to go for it anyway. I had been warned that the last 20 km of the drive is on unmade roads ( as a surprising distance of NZ roads seems to be!) and that at the end there is a river to cross (in the car!) and that if it’s been raining a lot the chances are you wont be able to cross it. At both the hostel and at the I-site they seemed pretty confident that it would be fine so off I headed. They had also advised me that as an alternative there was another walk visiting Diamond Lakes that was also nice. So as I drove out of town I was still in two minds as to which walk to do, I wanted to do the Rob Roy one I just didn’t fancy the hours drive each way, Wanaka looked so lovely I wanted to have time after the walk to explore the town before I headed off again.


On the way to Rob Roy I came across the signs to Diamond Lake, I pulled into the car park to find I was the only car there (was it the right place or was I too early or too late?) it wasn’t that early but it also wasn’t that late, maybe I was the first there, that’s a nice feeling when you could be the first out on a walk. As I was still deciding about which walk to take two more cars drove up (it was the right place after all) and like them I opted for this walk in the end.




The Diamond lake



There was a couple who headed off just before me, then I went, then another lady behind me. 500m up the track there was a toilet and my philosophy is never, never and I really do mean never ever, pass up the opportunity (!) so I didn’t! Waiting for me when I came out there was the other lady asking if she can join me on the walk which was really nice, so we chatted and chatted all the way until we came across the first view point and met with the couple who headed out just before us and then for the rest of the walk we all walked together which was great.

The walk then headed off up Rocky Mountain and at the top, now that is my ‘beautiful place’, yay I’ve found it! And if I never come home, you now know exactly where to find me, and of course where to send Milo! It was beautiful, really really beautiful. NZ so far has been lovely and so interesting and different in so many ways, but this is something else, this is where I could stay but only............ if I had a place right on the lake complete with mountain views! I can dream though right?!



Gorgeous huh?


Reluctantly, after a bit of lunch and absorption of the views we headed off back to the bottom of the mountain and back into Wanaka.

I then took myself off to Puzzleland which was great fun, they have the first double story maze which was trying but I did it eventually. Myself and a French guy (I think) were trying to find our way around it and I won! He was amusing though, chatting away to himself in French, I guess though, it was no different to me chatting away to myself in English!

My plan for the forthcoming days is to make my way down south a little further heading for the sounds. Ideally I would like to visit Doubtful sound which is more remote than the very busy Milford sound. Now this is a story and a half!

I, again, didn’t really realise quite how booked out these things get, it’s difficult when you’re travelling to keep up with where you are, so as not to miss anything, as well as plan ahead (never my speciality)! It was not until this evening that someone I was sharing with at the hostel said how she had wanted to do Doubtful but it was fully booked! Aaagh! So I straight away got on the internet and phone to try and sort something out (seeing as my plan was to be there in just one days time). When I called they had availability for 1 person on the overnight cruise, great. Thing is, you know how long it takes me to make decisions, so first I thought I would have dinner while trying to think about it, then I thought I would sleep on it, mmm BIG mistake!

Driving to Wanaka (26th Feb)

This morning was a relatively early start, to be fair though they are all early mornings, just some slightly more so than others, there’s always someone up before you though and always someone up after you, so I guess it evens out!

Today I’m heading down to Wanaka and I’m really looking forward to it, I’ve heard from so many people how lovely it is so I’m really looking forward to seeing what the rest of NZ has to offer as well as hopefully seeing some more sheep!

Before I headed off on my long drive down south I went back to Lake Matheson to check out the reflections in the morning light, and it was well worth it, just an hours walk around the lake and you’re rewarded with fantastic reflection views of the mountains in the lake.

Now, my impression of NZ, and as told by others, is that it’s full of sheep, more sheep than people apparently and I love sheep, odd I know but there’s something very cute and endearing about them! J Perhaps it’s all those childhood years spent on my cousins farm bottle feeding the lambs when I was a kid, who knows. So far though, I really haven’t seen anywhere near the amount of sheep I was expecting. I was expecting and looking forward to seeing field upon field upon field of fluffy white sheep galloping over the countryside. Instead, so far all I’ve seen is a couple of fields of rather grubby, sad looking sheep. I have seen though, a couple of fields of cows and a couple of fields of deer, I’ve even seen a couple of fields of llamas and alpacas as well as a couple of fields of very large kinda deer like animals, but no more than a couple of fields of dirty white sheep. Where have all the sheep gone in NZ?

It’s a long drive down to Wanaka, around 5 hours, and that would be fine if only I had something to listen to but.........!

So, when I’ve been away before and hired a car (usually in a foreign speaking country and therefore foreign speaking radio!) I always forget to take with me a CD and mentally make a note that the next time I go I wont forget one. The last time I went away was Cyprus in December and we had a hard job finding anything in English on the radio so with this in mind I remembered about taking a CD but thought to myself that as NZ is mostly English speaking I should be ok, right? Wrong! I would have been if they hadn’t put so many mountains and valleys in the way! The very mountains and valleys that I love hiking up and down I might add!

So with this glorious landscape as company my 5 hour journey from Fox to Wanaka was pretty much a silent one, I guess though it did give me time to think to myself (!) and once I got bored of that activity I attempted plugging the ear phones into the laptop and listening to music on there. The only problem there was that I haven’t had enough time to play with the media programme it uses to work out how to play music constantly so it just plays the one song you select and then nothing. So plan B or is that C, D and E (!) was to choose just one song to play over and over. I managed to position the laptop and then the mouse cursor over the play button on the media player so that each time the song came to the end I just needed to click the mouse and it would start again, aha the ingenuity of it all huh?

Well, this worked (kinda) except there were so many places to stop off at on the way, view points and glorious waterfalls that I would get half way through the song and then have to pack it all back up again pop it back into my backpack, get out of the car, see the attraction, take a photo (or many) and get back in the car again. Beautiful vistas and locations, it’s a tough trip huh?! It did mean though that I now know all the words to Lily Allens, The Fear. Great song.

The last 20km of the drive was magnificent, I was beginning to see what everyone was talking about, there was more stopping off for photo opportunities than there was driving time. I arrived at Wanaka around 4pm and instantly loved it, there’s something very magical and beautiful about being on the edge of a huge lake. Wanaka is very fortunate in that it seems to have still retained its local NZ feel despite being on the tourist trail. The hostel I’m staying at is right on the lake’s edge with fantastic views of both the lake and the mountains surrounding it. When I walked in, instead of increasing noise levels that you sometimes get I was greeted by people relaxing and reading books, lovely.