We were Invercargill for one night before heading north to Lake Manapouri. While in Invercargill, we did some shopping. I got my haircut. We found a geocache to log the travel bugs visits, took some photos and headed out of town.
Lake Manapouri
The weather was clearing and we made arrangements to take an 8 hour tour out to Doubtful Sound the following day. We stayed in a cute campground with a lake view that had a German Alpine feel to it. The owners were American Ex-pats that loved Germany. They were also collectors of all sorts of things. We enjoyed a lovely afternoon and sunset on the lake.
Manapouri Power Station
We awoke to a glorious blue sky day. The weather forecast was correct. We boarded a ferry for our ride across Lake Manpouri which was about a 1 hour trip.
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| Diagram spiraling underground tunnel road |
Manapouri is a natural Alpine lake that flows to the sea 171 meters below. The power station was built to supply the power requirements of and aluminum smelter company back in Bluff, 171 km away. Because there is no dam, the generators are dug down into the granite nearly 2 kilometers deep. The water drops 700 cubic meters a minute, down from the lake to the turbines, generating power, and then is shot out into Doubtful Sound.
Building of the Power Station took 8 years to build. It is one of New Zealand's engineering feats. Access to the generators is down this long steep tunnel with only a small turn around at the bottom. The bus driver received an ovation from the passengers after he did a 3 point turn that was inches from all of the front, back and side walls of the tunnel.
Doubtful Sound
The bus driver negotiated many miles of steep turns and 22% grade down to the sound. The views going down were breathtaking. At the bottom of the road, we boarded another vessel which would be the one to take us out to sea and back through the sound. Everywhere was a beautiful view worth photographing.
Because we had such calm seas, we were able to poke into the Tasman Sea to see some seal colonies on the outside of the sound.
On our return trip, our skipper took us up into Crooked and Hall's Arms of the fjord. The steep cliffs are scarred from avalanches not only of snow, but of rocks jolted free be the over 2,000 earthquakes this area experiences every year due to the tectonic plate movement under NZ. Water cascades off of the rocks anywhere it can. Taking pictures of waterfalls becomes almost a mundane task.Late in the afternoon, we headed back to the dock, boarded the bus that took us back up the twisty road to the power station, and returned on the ferry once again over Lake Manapouri. We didn't return to our camper until 8:15 in the evening. We had had a wonderful day!
Onward to Te Anau and Milford Sound
The day after our trip, the clouds started to pile up and rain was predicted for the next couple of days. We left Manapouri and headed toward Ta Anau. We had met some Americans from Colorado who had taken the helicopter ride through Milford Sound out of Queenstown and said it was a fabulous experience. Since we had taken the boat through Doubtful in the sunshine and thought we might take the helicopter up through Milford, we weren't too disappointed with the weather forecast as it would give us an opportunity to see the mountains and the sound in misty conditions, yet another beautiful experience.
We checked into the campground at Te Anau and found a cute little area in the campground that looked like a little garden. Shortly after we arrived, another camper pulled in next to us. They did not sound like Kiwis, but North American. We started to chat with them and recognized them as the Sailing Vessel Paikea Mist! Gloria and Michael were one of the boats on the Puddle Jump with us. We had heard them on the radio, but had not met them. They were traveling with another cruising couple who would be arriving shortly....Allan and Alison from Fly Aweigh (whom we had met in Papette).
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| Allan and Alison in Front (Fly Aweigh), Michael and Gloria, rightside back (Paikea Mist) |
Milford Sound
As predicted, the weather was drizzly and wet on Saturday. By 9:30, the three cruising couples were headed up the road to Milford Sound. We were going for a day trip, the other two were staying at the lodge and kayaking for a few days.
On the way to Milford, we enjoyed the scenery, took a few short hikes, ate lunch in the camper van as the biting sandflies were swarming in the carpark by the Chasm trailhead. Once we had lunch, we doused ourselves in chemicals and set out for a fast hike to the Chasm. This was not an all by yourself type of a walk. Seven tour buses had disgorged in the parking lot. We thought by eating lunch, the lot would clear out, but no...For every bus that left, a new one took its place. We walked fast dodging past those poking along being eaten by flies. Sandflies are very slow fliers so it pays to move faster than they do. We didn't get one bite.....it also helped to have so much other "food" on the trail for them to nibble on. I guess tourist crush was a good thing in this location.
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| Looking down into the chasm, fascinating water sculpture |
We took some photos from shore of Milford Sound and Mitre Peak before heading back to Te Anau.
On the way back, Russ wanted to take a 3 hour return hike up Key Summit despite the rain. He couldn't wait to try on his new rain gear. Me, I was happy not trying on my new rain gear. I enjoyed a quiet and cozy afternoon in the camper reading while Russ trudged to the summit and back. He took some lovely pictures to try and make me feel like I missed a great hike. Not. But I did enjoy the photos. I am sure you will too.
Today is Sunday, and we are catching up on laundry, blogs, emails, etc. We leave tomorrow to visit friends of Shona Williams who we met in Samoa. Her friends own and operate a dairy farm not far from the main road leading to Queenstown. It looks like Wednesday will be the only clear day for the next week, so we have made reservations for our helicopter adventure out of Queenstown.
More later.
All is well with the 2 Sail R's
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