Invercargill to Milford Sound

Invercargill

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.

Diagram spiraling underground tunnel road

The fresh water lake is huge and worthy of a boat trip all by itself.  There are over 30 islands In Manapouri Lake.   Once on the west side of the lake where the Manapouri Power House operates, we got onto a bus that took us deep down under the mountain to the power station.

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).

Allan and Alison in Front (Fly Aweigh), Michael and Gloria, rightside back (Paikea Mist)

This was such a nice surprise.  These were the first cruising couples we have accidentally run across while traveling by land.  We enjoyed a nice evening together catching up and relating sea stories.  Alan and Alison had sailed their boat to Australia and sold it.  They flew back to NZ and rented a camper van and are traveling around NZ when they will return to the states in mid-March to resume their working lives as pilots for United and UPS.  We enjoyed picking their brains about their route to Oz as we will be headed that way next season.

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.

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

Dunedin to Invercargill

From Top to Bottom

As of today, Tuesday, February 15, we have traveled from the Top of the North Island, Cape Reinga, to Slope Point, southeast of Invercargill, a linear distance of approximately 1,400 kilometers.  The actually distance is more than that as we have zigged and zagged across the country from east coast to west coast and back during the last two and half months.    Tomorrow will begin our northbound journey up the west coast of the South Island,

But let’s back track a bit.

Dunedin

We arrived in Dunedin from Moeraki on Wednesday, February 9 in the early afternoon.  Luckily we arrived early. There were only three powered campsites available.  A large caravan group from England was expected later in the day.

We spent the afternoon driving around the city, taking photographs of the old Victorian buildings, many reminiscent of those we saw in Scotland.  The first permanent European settlers were from Scotland.  Late in the afternoon, we drove out to the headlands area where the Northern Royal Albatross are known to nest.  They are such huge, heavy birds they nest on high headlands and run off the cliffs into the thermals to take off.

They spend over 80 percent of their life over the water and only come ashore to lay their eggs and to raise their young.  Baby albatross do not reach maturity and start to fly until they are nearly a year old.  We were able to see several of these gigantic birds flying in from the sea late in the afternoon. 

Unfortunately, I lost of the photographs of our first day of Dunedin when Mac crashed.  Fortunately, all the other photos had been backed up. Here is a museum shot of an albatross.

On our second day in Dunedin, we visited the Cadbury Chocolate Factory.  They have some cute exhibits, but don't allow photographs inside the factory.

The best part of the visit was getting to eat the chocolates.  We’ve since been on a serious carb high as we sample all of the goodies.  New Zealand is a huge dairy producer which is a good thing as the Cadbury factory uses 200,000 liters of milk a day to produce its milk chocolates.

On the third day, we spent most of the day at the Otago Museum.  We are becoming so familiar now with New Zealand history, culture, flora, and fauna that there were parts of the museum we could breeze through.  Still there is much to learn and there were some fascinating exhibits including an explanation of the Moeraki Boulders, mudstone concretions.  One of the fascinating exhibits in the museum was all about faces and facial expressions.   We had some opportunities to put our faces in to some famous artwork.

Saturday, Russ and I got up early and went into Dunedin to take the train to the Taieri Gorge. The Saturday morning farmers’ market was in full swing at one end of the rail yard.

The trip was a half day trip and back from the magnificent Edwardian railway station at sea level to Pukerangi at 250 meters above sea level.  The vintage train hugged cliffs, chugged through long dark tunnels, and crossed over several viaducts through picturesque gorges.

 Built in the late 1800’s and open for business in 1889.  After 100 years of service transporting agricultural goods and building materials for the Clyde Dam, the railroad was closed down.  The city of Dunedin purchased the train and track for tourist excursions, and it is one of Dunedin’s leading tourist attractions toda

Barbara and Bruce

We had a fair weather day and enjoyed the ride and the company of an Auckland couple who sat across from us on the train.They are headed for India, and we hope to catch up with their travels in April when we are back in Auckland.

OH NO!
Upon returning to Dunedin, Russ and I headed south and hour and half out of the city to a little place called Kaka point where we camped for the night.  When we reached the campsite, Russ wanted to do some tax work and discovered that he had left his paperwork binder (lots of information, credit cards, etc.) in the kitchen at the Dunedin campground.  Yipes!  Not good!

After a few frantic minutes, we were able to contact the campground, and yes they had our binder.  One of our fellow campers had found it and tried to bring it to us but we had already left for the early morning train trip.  He turned it in to the office and the office sent us an email. We were so thankful.  We got up early the following morning and returned to Dunedin to retrieve the binder.  With the binder in hand, we headed south once again to Owaka and Pounawea.

Owaka

We visited the Owaka museum and fell in love with a small New Zealand quilted wall hanging, created by NZ Quilting Artist Corale Hollocks, which will be our primary souvenir of New Zealand.

Not far from our campground in Pounawea, we drove to a trail head and hiked to a Jack’s Blowhole.  The blowhole is 200 meters from the ocean and is similar to the sink/blow hole up in the Mendocino headlands.  The sea surges in through a cavernous opening into this big pit and the waves crash around.  It is an interesting and beautiful geological feature.

Michael and Karen

It was a cold and windy walk to the blowhole.  I wore my Alaskan fleece headband with “Alaska” embroidered across the front. We met another couple at the blow hole…..from Palmor,Alaska.  We’ve gotten so used to Kiwi, British, and German accents, it was a treat to talk with some other Americans.  Both school teachers, this couple just retired and are in NZ for two months.

We only stayed one night at Pounawea, and the following morning continued our southerly drive down the coast.  It was a magnificently clear day.  .Our first mini hike of the day was to the Purakanui Falls.   

Once again in the car, we rounded the bend at Papatowi we looked down on the magnificent beach of  Tautuku Bay.  It was sweeping crescent shaped bay with long graceful waves breaking on the sand.  We stayed in a campground close to the McLean waterfall. 

The McLean Falls Motel and Holiday park was in Chaslands.  It was definitely one of the nicer campgrounds we have stayed in.  They had a lovely café that served up Mexican food along with gluten-free fudge brownies.  While staying at the camground, we took a nice walk to the McLean Falls and enjoyed the colorful mushrooms on the side of the road. 

Later in the day when the tide was low, we trekked  down through a fern forest and across a golden sand beach to the Cathedral caves .

The cave has two entrances.  When the tide is low, we could walk through one entrance and exit around the corner to the other.  It can be a very dangerous place when the tide is high and the trail head down to the beach is gated off until just one hour before low tide and one hour after low tide.

Southern Tip, Slopes Point & Bluff
Tuesday, February 15 is the day we reached the southern most point, Slopes Point, of the south island.  To commemorate, we pulled out all of our geocaching travel bugs and took their pictures with the GPS.

Travel Bugs from Left to Right:   Hang a Left (Hal) Pirate, Cruising 1, Gordon the Gnome, and Dragon of the West

 Slopes point is a windswept headland where the grass grows sideways and the ground cover hugs on to the soil with all of its might.

 Later in the day, we also drove to Bluff which technically is not the farthest south point, but is traditionally considered the southern most point as the scenic highway ended here.

Invercargill

We are in Invercargill this evening.  I was able to get my haircut this afternoon.  We did some sightseeing of local buildings, and did a little grocery shopping.  Our Internet connection isn’t great here at the campground, so we will look for a better connection in the morning.  We would like to find at least one geocache in the area before leaving so that we can log the travel bugs in and give them mileage credit.  Oh what we do for the love of a geocaching adventure!

There is a high pressure system over the southwest coast now, so we made arrangements to take an all day boat tour through Doubtful Sound on Thursday.

Still having fun.  All is well with the 2 Sail R's