End of our trip.

Well, we are in Christchurch now, in a lovely B and B,  and spent the morning having a late breakfast and visiting the botanic gardens, which are quite beautiful and full of autumn colours and fruits.

We have explored the city which is a construction site,

 seen the amazing cardboard cathedral, and got lost in all the roadworks.

Tomorrow we fly home, after the most amazing holiday, full of fun, having explored only  a tiny part of this varied country, but having enjoyed every minute,  every walk, every journey, and every experience .

END OF BLOG

Doubtful Sound

Frida17th up at 05.30 to get the bus at 06.30. No one else around at the YA,  we had stored the suitcases the previous night. The same confusion at the bus stop, some passengers are so rude and arrogant! We just watched the arguments with the driver in amazement, but eventually he got us all aboard and quiet!
A stunning drive south I  the breaking dawn, no commentary as most were asleep. So I watched the glorious sunrise flooding the mountains, lakes  and fields as we went back to Te Anau.  The bus stopped at a lay by to wait for another bus to meet us at 9.10 , driven by Brian, who took us another 30 minutes or so to Manapouri to board the 'real journeys' boat across Lake Manapouri. Real journeys also do an overnight trip, but with 70 passengers, so much bigger.

The trip along the lake was lovely, majestic steep mountains in all directions, bright sun and   an early empty boat with free tea and coffee! Quite cold of course on the open deck, but beautiful.
At the other end, West Arm, the enormous hydroelectric station and cables across to the mountain opposite were interesting, the power station had been built for an aluminium works on the south coast at Bluff, and only 15% of the electricity generated goes into the national grid, and the project needed a tunnel throughthe mountain 10 km  long and 200m deep, to take the water out from the power station to Doubtful Sound on the other side. And a road had to be built for the construction. So a very expensive private HE system, and it is only because of that private road that Doubtful sound is accessible at all.
On to yet another bus for 45 minutes, fantastic view of the sound.

There were 8 of us passengers on this very well appointed Southern Secret, a 20m boat with 7 cabins, ours was a family cabin with a small ensuite. Lunch was fresh cray fish cooked by Kristen who was the 2nd crew member. Clint was the captain, also owner of the boat, owner of track net bus company, owner of the holiday park and backpackers hostel, so a very big employer in the area.

They were both very hospitable, knowledgeable and chatty,  Kristen doing the cooking, some helming,  supervising our activities,  hauling in the lobster pots too.

The weather had been sunny but was becoming dull and windy, so after lunch we stopped in a sheltered area of the sound for 4 of us to kayak for an hour. This was delightful,  getting right up to the bush, and away from the engine birdsong could be detected. There were surprisingly few birds, and we saw no human life at all. There were deer on some of the flatter areas, but most of the sound was surrounded by incredibly steep mountains. While kayaking, the silent sound suddenly reverberated with happy laughter from the boat-Chris had caught her first ever fish! It was a magical afternoon, one that I will never forget, and the closest to real uninhabited wilderness that I have ever experienced.

It was however lovely to get back on board to a hot shower!

We continued to sail up some of the branches of the sound (which is really a fiord) raising the lobster pots  fishing-5 perch and 1 blue cod - accompanied by 6 albatrosses,  most were small albatrosses called Buller's Mollymauks, or grey molly auks,  and a bigger one was a white mollymauk.  Also George the enormous gull! 

I was amazed at the lack of wildlife, this is apparently because the huge numbers of ground birds that inhabited theses mountains have been killed by foreign introduced stoats and weasels and possums, which are now impossible to control and have completely destroyed the native New Zealand  wildlife. There are 2 predator free islands in  fiordland which are being used for breeding programmes, particularly for kiwis which are nocturnal and almost never seen now in the wild.

Sorry no photos, I used my camera only! 

Supper was a delicious lamb dish and a separate chicken platter, the 8th us all had good appetites, and some  of us had brought wine too, so there was enough to share around, but thankfully not enough for any excess!

The absolute icing on the cake was that Kristen had in a former life been a concert pianist , she is German, and studied there, and also taught and performed.

So we had a wonderful intimate concert, at night, rain pounding above, in the wilderness, of a waltz, 2 chopin nocturnes,   Beethoven's pathetique,  and 2 Einauidi pieces. Wonderful.

A good sleep, up in the night to admire the southern cross, and breakfast while returning to the jetty at Deep Cove. As it had rained there were even waterfalls. 

The rest of Saturday was returning to Queens town,  even busier and noisier than 2 days ago! The YHA was fully booked, and so we got a 2nd floor room, quieter, and we actually slept better.

Another early start  to get the 08.00 bus to Christchurch,  a 8 hour journey with the delight of retracing our steps, different views and a chance to snooze.

Back to Queenstown

So Thursday morning we left the KE group and got the bus back to Queens town. This was a hilarious experience after a quiet peaceful morning in the lovely little town of Tekapo visiting the tiny church,

Packing up from the surprisingly friendly, clean and we'll appointed motel with a splendid lake view

And enjoying 2 hours of relaxation at last!

Enjoy used the talking toilets in the car park before we left, quite an experience! But the bus journey was hilarious; complete chaos boarding as the passengers who had already been on the 3 buses had all had a 20 minute break, and came back to find that their buses had all had their destination signs changed. Now a lot of tourists in New Zealand have limited English,  are exhausted from travelling and have no idea at all of the geography, so various Chinese,  Asian,  and Japanese travellers got on the wrong buses, insisted that their luggage was missing and generally caused chaos. Eventually the very firm and rather impatient drivers sorted them out!
We were entertained and irritated by several passengers, including one who wanted the driver to turn round after 30 minutes as he'd lost his documents, and a couple in the seats behind us having a loud and frank 'domestic' with the recurring theme of evidently bad behaviour at a wedding, hair cut too short, rude speech,  disagreement regarding their current trip to Millford sound, etc etc. Thankfully sleep overtook  them after a few hours! The journey took us back over the route we had previously travelled in bad weather so we got wonderful views of sheep

Farm irrigation on a vast scale

 Empty roads

And mount Cook in the distance. 

Queens town is a hot spot for adrenaline junkies, full of young sporty noisy busy youngsters, expensive equipment shops , every sort of cuisine,  and noise. It pulsates with young energy. Checking into the YHA we felt very old! We had a 'devilburger' for tea, and caused I think some amusement among the rest of the clientele all in their twenties and then we slouched around the lake front soaking up the atmosphere.including a pipe and drum band!

Off very early in the morning

Thursday 15th March, off to Doubtful sound

Eventually got wifi again, and a few minutes spare, so sitting outside a cafe in Tekapo,  in sight of the beautiful lake, and this was our view from the balcony this morning !

So since the last blog on Saturday, we have been pretty busy! Had our first rain on Sunday when we walked to a bird sanctuary and tried out our waterproofs, saw a morepauk owl, a takahe,  with a 3 month old chick,  now endangered as ground feeding birds are easy prey to stoats and possums which were introduced to NZ last century.

Next stop on this mainly driving day was to watch bungee jumping near Queens town,  crazy....

 Kept driving north through Mackenzie country  viewing canals and hydroelectric stations and salmon farms. Plenty of merino sheep, even roadside signs saying 'icebreaker station'!  and we stopped to read about Shrek,  the sheep that escaped shearers for a few years and was a celebrity when he was shorn on an iceberg!

Accommodation in very old fashioned A frame  lodge , dilapidated,  but I had 3 beds to  choose from! Lovely guide cooked salmon supper.

Next day, Monday,  should have been a high walk to Mueller's hut, but with rain and low cloud we just did half way to Sealy tarns, up 2000 steps, 600m (1900feet) of climbing.😧 wonderful vegetation but no photos as they are on the camera not the phone. In the afternoon, as if we needed more, we then did a 7km walk to Hooker Lake to see icebergs that have not melted all summer. Still raining, though we did get the waterproofs dried at lunch time. 

So that was a lot of walking, again. We managed but we're pretty weary, so pleased that the restaurant was quick and efficient, and we discovered the heater in our lodge, so early warm night.

Tuesday dawned beautiful, and we were off for the final adventure to stay in the Rex Simpson hut. Leisurely morning getting sorted out to carry everything up to the hut,  a lovely picnic lunch,  beside lake Tekapo,  

then off road track to start the ascent at 2.30.  3 gruelling hot hours later,  there was the isolated hut, and toilet☺. We climbed 500m (1700 feet), beautiful weather to sit outside in the sun and sip champagne for Mark's birthday. Then cooked and ate our curry.

j

The night sky was stupendous after sunset, and Finn gave us all a lesson about the southern cross.  There was only limited solar lighting in the hut, so we all got into our sleeping bags and bunks noisily......not a lot of sleep, though the bags were wonderfully warm. At 02.00 the moon was bright as daylight, no torch needed, but of course not much stargazing either.

Wednesday am up for breakfast at 07.00, porridge and toast. Then off in the frost for a walk up Erica's peak.  In fact that was a 3 hour hard uphill slog, with a nice ridge in the middle, an ascent of 800m,  to a height of 1944m (6000feet), the highest height of the trip. Then back down, brace on , to the hut for a late lunch of toasties to use up the food, as everything including waste had to be carried down again. Then off downhill, another difficult 2 hours, very hot, so my ankle rash and sweat rash under the brace were apparent again. This was a wonderful, but very hard day, and the whole mountain hut and peak climb was a marvellous climax to the 19 day  KE  trip. No photos as I did not take my phone, so all on camera.....

 A very quick turn around before our last evening meal, which was good, and farewells to our 2 guides. 

Chris and I leave the group to go off to Doubtful sound, more next time.

Saturday. Milford Sound

Cloudy and damp this am,  so plan to walk to Key Summit of Routeburn track was cancelled as no point if no views....but as we drove towards Millford Sound the weather cleared and we were treated to the most amazing mountain scenes, not easy to photograph as the mountains were so close and so steep. We enjoyed several short walks through ancient woodland used in filming the Lord of the ring, and up to waterfalls and along creeks. Still not seen a Kea,  but did see a Robin,  a pigeon, more fantails and silvereyes.

At lunch, a stoat trapper , Anne from one of the alpine clubs, cadged a lift up the road after inspecting the traps around our lunch spot (1 rat, no stoats or weasels and no possums)

We dropped Anne off at the start of the Homer tunnel, 1.2 km through the mountain, going steeply downhill all the way in single file. This road is not for the fainthearted! Next up, was our boat trip on the Milford sound. A stunning visual experience shared with a large number of other tourists . Amazing waterfalls despite the lack of rain for 2 weeks, but very little wildlife visible.

On journey back to Te Anau we stopped to investigate the chasm, and the varied potholes scoured out by the force of the river.

We all piled into the cinema before dinner to view an amazing film of the fjords shot by local helicopter pilots, and early to bed....

And so to bed, no sunset tonight.

Friday 10th, day 13 of KE trip

Been a busy few days, very limited wifi,  so here are 3 days together.
Wednesday started early with a stupendous walk round the jewel of Lake Matheson, famous for its reflections.

Then lunch at a salmon farm entertained by the white heron, kotuku,  and a black shag.

We also stopped at beaches, lake moeraki, knight's viewpoint,  ship Creek,  kahihiki white pine tree reserve, saw hector dolphins.
, thunder force falls, We've held up by a rockfall on the road, drove along lakes waneka and hawea and eventually reached waneka spa hotel, disappointingly corporate and mediocre.  But the long drive with 5 short walks was amazingly varied.

Thursday was the big big walk up mount Roy. 1200 metres,  3800 feet. BE  IMPRESSED.  Very challenging, especially as I thought we'd done it only to find another 250 metres to go! Exhausting for us both!

Lovely pizza meal this evening.

Friday was another driving day, starting with a delightful 3 hour walk round diamond lake and up another hill, name escapes me

!and a picture of the whole group.

Long drive past Queenstown to Te Anua, more of that tomorrow!

Tuesday 7th

Got some intermittent Internet connection tonight, so here goes. We have been travelling fast down the west coast for 2 days, and stopped and seen so much that I have got all the details muddled up!

Yesterday, another lovely sunny day,  stopped at a viewpoint for Mount Cook at Hope Saddle,

 passed through the enormous Butler river system, picnic lunch overlooking the ocean at a previous mining village, tackled the Trueman track which turned out to be about 15 minutes to a cliff formation and fresh waterfall,

checked into campsite lodge below the level of the sea:a new rather precarious flood bank made us feel a bit vulnerable as the waves crashed 10 feet away!

Our late evening visit to the pancake rock formations and blow holes was stunning at high tide

before an indifferent meal at a roadside pub. No worries though as we have been consistently overfed all trip!

Today was an early start after  a pancake breakfast!  This has been our first rainy day, but that didn't prevent us enjoying a short coffee and shopping trip in Hokitika and to buy lunch,all subsequently left by the roadside in error! However, Chris our guide managed to produce  a slightly odd assortment of food for a picnic at  the Okarito trig point, a fast steep ascent in glorious weather again and our first glimpse of the high snowclad mountains.

On again  back to the main highway, amazed to be sharing the road with the railway, no signals at all  where the rails shared roundabouts, and and one point a shared bridge!  Traffic generally pretty light and considerate, but even so it is a bit weird to have to check for trains in the road! Eventually got to Fox glacier,

another fast steep walk up to the viewpoint, but in fact the glacier has retreated significantly in the last years  so we were some distance from a disappointingly grey mound which was the glacier. Not white and glistening like I had imagined! This evening we had a magnificent early meal, and gratefully early to bed in a very well organised camp and lodge site.Chris and i are again in a disabled access room! It would appear that twin bed accommodation is not common,  so disabled friendly rooms tend to have a spare single bed....wonderful sunset.