Day 95 Te Anau, Totara Forest, Invercargill

It rained hard all night so we were surprised when we woke up to a sunny day. Pleasantly surprised I might add.  We left Te Anau by turning on to Hwy 95 which was the start of the Southern Scenic Route.  It goes from Te Anau right around the tip of Southland up to Dunedin. 

We didn't stop for the first picture until we were south of Manapouri as we were here earlier in the trip.  Manapouri is where we started the first stage of the Doubtful Sound Cruise.  The terrain for the most part was farmland with mountains on both sides of us.  We followed the Waiau River all the way to where it fed into the Tasman Sea.

Our first stop was in Clifton which is home to the longest spanning suspension bridge in New Zealand. It is 366 feet long and is quite an achievement considering it was built in the late 1890's and actually opened on April 5, 1899.  It remained in use until 1978.



Clifton Bridge

One area we did want to see was the Dean Forest where there are 1000 year old Totara Trees.  We had to detour 23 miles off the main road, most of it gravel to get to "The Big Totara Walk"  We were able to take a 30 minute stroll through the forest which is home to quite a few of the big Totara Trees. 



New Zealand Robin




New Zealand Robin



It was long after getting back on the Southern Scenic Route from Dean Forest that we ran into the Tasman Sea.  Our first stop was at McCracken's Rest which gave us a great view of Te Waewae Bay. 

Beach at McCracken's Rest

Beach at McCracken's Rest

I don't what I was expecting but I know I wasn't expecting the number of beautiful expansive beaches along the southern coast of Southland.  We stopped at a few of them and they were all the same, beautiful and quite large. Another good feature was that most of them were safe for swimming.  We even stopped at Gemstone Beach and hunted for gemstones.  Since we had no idea what we were looking for I am thinking that all we ended up with was a bunch of pretty rocks.  It was a nice walk though.



Gemstone Beach



Colac Beach







Monkey Island Beach




Pied Oyster Catcher



Colac Beach is well known for its surf.



Statue of Surfer at entrance to Colac Beach



You can see why surfing would be good here or why any wind sport would be good.  They do get a bit of wind.



Wind Blown Trees



There were a couple of other interesting places we stopped on our way to Invercargill where we are planning to stay for the night.  It really is a beautiful place in the summer. The winter time would be a different story, with nothing between here and the South Pole, I imagine it would be very windy and cold.



Mullet Bay



Monkey Island

Day 93 & 94 Wanaka, Te Anau

New Years Day was pretty quiet for us.  It was the half way point of our trip as we had now been here for three months.  It’s been said that you can tell how much fun you are having by how fast the time goes.  We must be having a blast because I can’t believe how fast the last three months have gone by.  The good news is that we still have another three months to go.



Blue highights our travels in December

Later in the afternoon we did go for a few groceries as we needed a couple of things for dinner.  Dinner tonight was BBQ'd Salmon that we bought at the Salmon Farm the day before.  It was slow cooked on a charcoal grill and even if I say so myself, it was pretty darn good.  It doesn't make up for missing my turkey dinner but it came close.

After dinner we watched the sun set on Wanaka, it would be our last night here.  We are very happy that we picked here to hunker down for the Xmas and New Year’s rush. The setting was great and we thoroughly enjoyed our time here.  It is a great little community and we will look back at our time here with fondness. 



Our last night in Wanaka




Wanaka - a pretty special place





Day 94 had us getting away around 10AM.  Our trip today had us going back to Queenstown before carrying on to Te Anau.  This was old ground for us as we had come this way earlier.  However we wanted to continue our exploration of the South Island by driving down the remainder of the west side.  In order to do this we had to return to Te Anau. 

We did take a different route to Queenstown that had traveling south on Hwy 8 until we reached Cromwell.  The country between Wanaka and Cromwell is mostly farming, both livestock and agriculture.  Cromwell seems to be the cherry capital of New Zealand.  Lake Dunstan came into view as we approached Cromwell.



Lake Dunstan



Upon leaving Cromwell we entered and travelled through the Kawarau Gorge which is about 25 miles long.  The gorge has a natural beauty and is also the site of several extreme sports. Bungy jumping, kayaking and riverboarding are the main ones.

Once we left the gorge we entered into wine country and we passed quite a few wineries on our way to Queenstown.

The drive from Queenstown to Te Anau was extremely picturesque but as we had travelled it before we didn't stop for any pictures.  I just pointed the van west and didn’t stop until reaching Te Anau. We checked in and spent the rest of the day planning out our next few weeks.  We are looking forward to being on the move again.

Day 92 Mount Cook, Lake Ohau, Wanaka

Friday started with a beautiful sunrise at around 5:30AM.  I can tell you that it sure wasn’t me taking the pictures but they were nice to look at.

We said goodbye to Mount Cook, well to what we could see of it. This is what it looks like most of the time.  We were pretty fortunate with our timing.

We headed south and followed Lake Pukaki it until it ended just before Twizel.

We stopped in Twizel for gas and found out that the town was built specifically as a residential base for workers on the Upper Waitaki Hydro scheme.  The plan was to bulldoze it after the project was completed but too many people wanted to stay.  The population did shrink after the completion of the hydro scheme but it is still a vibrant town.  The current focus of the community is tourism.

We stopped just outside of Twizel at a Salmon Farm and bought half a salmon.  The price was very reasonable for fresh salmon.  It is going to be our New Year’s Day dinner.

There was an area we wanted to see so shortly after the Salmon Farm we headed into the Lake Ohau area. It was about a 25 kilometer detour to the lake and it gave us a chance to have lunch and take some pictures.

The remainder of the drive back to Wanaka was on the same highway we used to get there so we didn’t stop for many pictures.  Just a few here and there.

We arrived back in town early enough to get set up before all the festivities started. We had a nice dinner from a Thai Restaurant in Wanaka and then just enjoyed the evening until the fireworks started at Midnight.

             HAPPY NEW YEAR Everyone

 

Day 91 Mount Cook

Today ( December 30, 2010) we hiked to Hooker Lake and Hooker Glacier. It was another glorious day as the sun was shining which gave us a good look at Mount Cook.  As with Mount McKinley in Alaska only about 20 per cent of the people get a clear look at the mountain.  It is usually cloud covered or at the very least a good portion of it covered.

The Hooker Lake hike was much flatter that most of the hiking we have done but it did give us challenges with the terrain.  There was a lot of rocks which made you pay attention to where you were stepping.  Kathy calls them joint hurting rocks.  The wind was also pretty forceful.  It wasn't a cold wind except when we were close to the glacier but it made talking a little difficult.   

The scenery, however, was spectacular.  When we first saw Mount Cook we were looking at the South and Southeast side of the mountain.  This view only gave us the top half of the mountain as Mount Wakefield is in front of it. When looking at the mountain from a distance it appears that Mount Wakefield is part of Mount Cook.  The hike had us going around Mount Wakefield in order to get a look at the glacier and the bottom half of the mountain.  As the hike progressed we were able to see more and more of the mountain. It also gave us a different look as we were looking at the South and Southwest side.  We were also privileged to see a number of  glaciers, cascading waterfalls, ice floes and The Mountain.

The Hike: 

The Scenery:



Hooker Glacier



 

Hooker Lake with large Ice Floe



The Mountain:

The entire hike was a little over 4 hours and it tired us out pretty good. Fortunately the wind was at our backs on the return trip.  We did take time to stop and view The Alpine Memorial, a monument dedicated to people who had lost their lives in Mount Cook. 

Alpine Monument

Once we had paid our respect we headed back to the campsite and settled in for the night.  It was a very rewarding day.