Sunday, April 1, 2012

Queenstown and home

The weather continued to improve as we left Te Anau and headed to Queenstown, a beautiful city in the mountains. A lot of the areas around were very similar in look to the interior of BC, the Okanagan and Kamloops.


Queenstown is situated on Lake Wakatipu and hosts skiing on local mountains. We headed up on the gondola to see the city, lake and the Remarkables (a mountain range that one may see in Lord of the Rings. Apparently a host of areas around Q town were filmed.) There is a bungy jump and a luge for the adventurous. We enjoyed a nice visit with Jenny, who was on my first trek in Nepal in 2004. We were entertained by her new baby daughter Olivia, 2 year old Hayden and Jen's Mom.





Well, as all good things come to an end, we boarded our flight back to Auckland on a beautiful sunny day and the views from the plane were incredible. We actually got to see the north peninsula of the south island and Mt. Taranaki, an old volcano which, due to heavy rains we did not get to visit when in the Lake Taupo area.








Back in Auckland we had a whole day to head back to the National Museum where they have a lot of the Maori culture as well as geological history of NZ. It included a house which you sit in and there is a simulated volcanic eruption with a shock blast that hits the house violently.







Thanks for reading, hoping you enjoyed our view of this great place. Also, thanks to those who sent emails and followed along our journey. We calculated 1400 kms of driving on the North island, 1800 kms on the South island for a total 3200 kms so we covered a lot of the country, but feel there is much more there for another time. 

Milford Sound

After leaving the glaciers of the west coast (of south island) we headed inland in torrential rains. We heard there was 200mm rain in 48 hours from the coast inland. By the time we arrived in Wanaka, there was some sun but loads of new snow in the local mountains. Mt. Aspiring was nearby but not to be seen.

Next day was a pleasant drive to Te Anau, a resort town where we stayed in a YHA hostel for several nights. We had booked the Milford Sound bus and boat tour in Christchurch, arranged to pick us up in Te Anau at the hostel. It was a cloudy day with some sunny breaks, but no surprise after all the rain to have cloud hanging around, giving the mountains a moody look.

Of course we were looking forward to seeing Mitre Peak in the sound, but it barely peeked out through the showers and cloud. The 8 hour day included a bus tour (I think we were the youngest on the bus!) out to Milford, then boarding a boat, having lunch and chugging out to the Tasman Sea. We saw many waterfalls, some of which only appear after heavy rains, seals on the rocks, the fault line where the Pacific plate pushes up against the Indian plate. (the whole south island was formed from subduction of the tectonic plates causing the mountains of the Southern Alps of NZ to continue to grow, and we are told they are the youngest mountain range on earth - in case I have not mentioned it, the north island was formed volcanically). We viewed the furthest point on the west coast where the next stop is Argentina, a few fishing boats, crayfish (lobster) farms, albatross flying out on the ocean and other tourist boats on the sound. Milford Sound is a popular destination for anyone visiting NZ.



In Te Anau, we saw a film on a big screen recorded over 10 years from helicopter flights in the area. Amazing scenery and much like the Canadian Rockies in many ways.