Sunday 14th July
What a lovely nights sleep we had! We were plugged into electric so we had the Hester on all night which kept the van a nice temperature, it was so nice not feeling the least bit cold. I had odd dreams in the night centred around earthquakes which will be due to the conversations on the glacier yesterday which I failed to mention. They stay awake from the sides of the glacier now due to frequent rocks falling due to the water seeping into cracks and expanding, chipping at it over time. A couple of years ago apparently they had a group on the ice going up through one of the formations at the time which was closer to the mountain face and a massive rock slide happened where they all got covered in soot inches think, lying on the ground with boulders flying over them. Since then they don't go near! We were also told about the constant shift of the ground, which we already know about, but how the area is placed right over the top of two plates. They said that they were expecting an earthquake more or less any time with a scale between 8-10 on the scale which will basically put everything at a stand still and cause a lot of devastation. It must have been than conversation that sparked my odd dreams last night!
It was a nice leisurely get up and I also made us poached egg on toast with tea so we were all set to go by the time it was coming up to 9.30am.
We drove perhaps 60km but it felt like longer because the temperature had dropped and it had snowed so the roads were a bit dangerous. It was also very windy compared to other days as well! The scenery stepped up a notch from that point onwards though, the mountains were taking different shapes and the extra snow made things look more magical. It's difficult to capture it on camera in a moving van. We also saw lots and lots of icicles on the rock sides next to the roads and places where running water had been changed into sheets of ice which was pretty impressive. We saw lots more beautiful horses, and some eagles or falcons not sure which, and owls. We arrived at haast blue pools and layered up to walk the 15 minute track down to them. As usual the forest tracks just take my breath away, I feel like I'm inside a storybook from long ago whenever we go through them. It's quiet, with the heaviness of all the trees blocking out light but the lightness of the air. It's just GREEN, that's the best way to describe it I suppose, really green. With bird sounds and the occasional bird spotting in there too. We crossed a swing bridge over a river of such clear water, it was the cleanest looking water I've ever seen in a river before. We walked a bit further to another bridge which made the river before look like nothing, there were really deep pools of water being fed by the river which were so clear you could see right down to the bottom. You could see all the trout swimming around under the water so clearly it was as though they were right at the top. We went down to the bottom to get closer to the water which as expected was freezing cold! All the stones were covered in a very strange frost where it had grown up in hundreds of tiny spikes. There were also lots of piles of rocks where people had piled them up, not sure what the original reason for doing it is but the effect with the clear water and snow and mountains made it even more beautiful to look at.
More driving the towards lake wanaka where the views were just something else. Unfortunately we couldn't stop to look as often as we would have liked to do the lookouts and lay-bys being covered with ice and snow. With the trouble we've had already with the van we just wernt going to risk it even for those kind of views. We drove past lake wanaka each is massive and beautiful, and drove in valleys covered with snow with sheep and deer in the fields.
When we reached wanaka we ended up deciding on a tour for queens town and booking it. We hadn't considered whether we would go to Milford sounds or doubtful sounds before, but after hearing about how long it takes to get to Milford we decided on doubtful in the end. I don't think there's too much difference in the two apart from one being a lot larger. E were going to drive ourselves there but were warned against it due to the bad weather and the type of road it is.
We wandered around a short while trying to find somewhere to sit in the warm for a drink and some food, it took a while because everywhere was quite full- something we havnt come across yet. But it's the school holidays now and this area is very popular for skiing. We tried for a short while to find a burger bar we had been told about but it was so cold we gave up in the end and went into the first place we could find with indoor seating. Again we treated ourselves to a bought lunch and a hot drink, which is bad really because its a lot cheaper just preparing something in the van! It was nice enough though and we felt rested and full when we left. We went down to the waters edge down a little walkway to look at the ducks and fish in the water, and were going to go on a short half hour walk but the track didn't look that spectacular and it was freezing cold so we decided just to head on our way so we knew we would be camped somewhere before it got dark.
A top up on a bit of shopping done then away we went to Arrowtown which is a small town kind of out of the way nestled in between the mountains- about 10km away from queenstown. It's kept the original buildings from the late 1800s/early 1900s so it's got a lovely atmosphere about it. I suppose it's not so out of the ordinary for two Brits but we could easily see the big appeal because it was lovely, with bakeries and cafes, a museum, a little grocery store and other shops dotted around. It used to be an old gold mining town and did quite well for itself with the arrow river being one of the richest sources of gold in the world.
We walked down the high street being extremely careful on the ice, looking in all the shops and enjoying a leisurely stroll. Our plan was to go into one of the cute little cafes for a hot chocolate or something, but we came across a sweet shop called the remarkable sweet shop with a sign on the door that said it had english sweets too. We had to go in of course. So many sweets! We had a good look and picked up several things and put several things back before we decided on a curly wurly to share, some liquorice all sorts and a mixture of different nice gummy looking things as well as a cherry coke for Liam. After that little splurge it was decided against going to the cafe, so we slipped and slid down to the van, having a very quick look at the Chinese area in acknowledgement of the thousands of Chinese miners that used to live there, and continued the journey to queens town. We had hoped to find a filming spot from lord of the rings but any street we felt might lead to it was just too icy for us to want to risk it. It was very pleasant looking at all the quaint houses with the firewood stacked up outside and snowboards and skis propped up against the walls.
The drive down to queenstown was wonderful, you come from above so you see the town and the lake from a height and spiral your way down towards it. We got to our campsite at around 5.30 so just before it was getting dark which was perfect.
We had an early start in the morning, a taxi was coming to get us at 6.40am to go on our day trip. So I packed a few snacks and prepared for the next day, then we showered in our lovely shower and chilled out for the rest of the evening making sure we got into bed at a decent time...which isn't hard lately as I seem to be sleeping before 10pm every night now and Liam just follows suit!
Monday July 15th
We were up and out in the cold in time for our 6.40 taxi. By 7am we were on the coach which had a glass roof but it doesn't get light until about 8am so there wasn't much to see for a while and most people seemed to sleep.
We drove though landscapes mostly made by glacier movement, expanses of flat land with boulders just dropped every now and again, with the driver giving occasional commentary about the villages and the lay of the land. Most of the towns and villages were founded during the gold rush and flourished during that time, where most of them now are full of farmlands and fishing. In the 1960s they began to use helicopters to cull the red deer that had been breeding quickly over the last 100 years. They had been introduced from England and with so little competition began to take over the landscape. They would shoot around100 a day and just leave them where they fell, until they realised it was a big waste. Then there was a shift to grazing and venison recovery, they would lead and bring the deer inland to graze,so that they could make use of the meat and begin to sell it. To this day they take thousands of deer off the tops of mountains and the forests and they let them graze in controlled environments.
The coach driver pointed out different plants, Scott's broom which was introduced with the Scottish Europeans arrived, something i think was called flax which had long pointy leaves used by Maori for flooring, roofs, baskets, rope materials. Tussocks of different varieties and spiky plants Maori used for tattooing. There was lots of snow all around and very big deep lakes caused by glacier movement over the years.
We swapped coaches after around 2 hours, 15 minutes or so into that one we stopped at a little port and boarded a boat which took us about 30km down lake manapouri. There was free tea and coffee which was nice as we hadn't had time for a hot drink earlier, and we used that time to eat the yoghurt and muesli I packed for breakfast.
The captain gave a commentary about the history of the lake, it used to be named lake of constant rain in Maori then changed to lake of many islands. The Maori used to live off the birds, fish and eels in the lake in the summer then travel to warmer areas in the winter. It's a natural lake despite people believing its man made because of the power plant on it, but the power plant was built only recently to produce power from the water. However the rule for that is the water levels can't be seen to change at all unless it is in correlation with the rains.
When we reached the other end we got onto another coach to drive up and over the mountain. It was very icy so we had to stop for them to put snow chains on the wheels. We stopped at a couple of view points looking down on the waters and saw lots of thin waterfalls falling from big heights. After an hour we were boarding another boat which was very nice, ready for the 3 hour cruise around doubtful sound. It was a really lovely 3 hours, we had a packed lunch we had pre ordered which was very nice, lots of free tea, and the views were lovely. It reminded us of halong bay in Vietnam but a lot colder and more wildlife. We saw dolphins and seals, unfortunately it was a bit too soon in the year to see penguins. The water was fairly calm, it got quite bumpy when we approached the Tasman sea but it evened out soon enough. Some areas are as deep as 400m from the glacier movement, but lots of deep water wildlife actually live fairly close to the surface. That's due to all the tannin thats carried down through the forest into the water which blocks out light and heat and makes a semi saline mixture.
We also had chance to stop the engines of the boat, as well as everybody being quiet and not walking around so it was silent in one of the bays, which made it even more pretty. You couldn't hear a thing which although made it kind of serene, its also a bit sad in a way because a hundred years ago you would have heard bird song, but with all the introduced pests such as stoats for example, the numbers are a lot lower now. A lot of the islands are named Spanish names because of the Spanish explorers who first sailed around it and produced maps. Cook did approach the sound but didn't want to risk going within the channels so he missed out on naming these ones.
On the way back to the lake crossing we made a stop off at manapouri power station. To go down and look we had to travel 2km underground via a tunnel which was built in the 1960s. It took 8 years to build and 16 deaths occurred in that time. You drive on the right hand side of the tunnel because the builders were all international so I think it's stayed that way out of respect for their work. The power plant goes through the equivalent of 800 Olympic sized swimming pools every minute and produces enough power to illuminate the whole of the South Island which is pretty impressive.
At about 4.30ish we boarded the boat to go back across the river, no more information just relaxing whilst it took us back across. By this time we were both pretty tired and the next couple of change overs went in a bit of a blur. By 6ish we were on the original bus from the morning, kind of dozing to calming music or watching the Big Bang theory on the iPad. We were back at the campervan for about 8.30pm, and hadn't really eaten since 2 so Liam decided to make us a rice based meal for us to sit and enjoy before going to bed.
