Glorious Glen Orchy

We had a quieter day driving to Lake Wanaka for lunch, then back through Queenstown to a place that Hamish has said was wonderful - Glen Orchy - he was right!

We freedom camped again beside the lake watching the cloudy sunset and bright sunrise over the superb snow capped mountains all round. I wonder if the original in Scotland is as tranquil and relaxing.

  Waking up here was about as good as it gets

 Made all the better by the bacon and eggs finished off on a fire on the beach (the gas cylinder ran out!!)

 

 

 A coffee to stay..... just look at the view

 

As Malcolm said this is the place that people drive to in their camper buses and then throw away the keys because this is the best it can get!

Like this one!

Definitely coming back here at Christmas time!

Then back to Christchurch for Malcolm's conference flew back to Tauranga, picked up the cars and a long drive to Auckland and to our new life in the big smoke! - perhaps we should have just thrown away the keys for the Jucy van???

Kea Characters

After escaping the marauding sandflies at Milford we headed back at a leisurely pace through the tunnel in the Humbolt Mountains which used to cut Milford off from the rest of the world - quite an amazing piece of kiwi engineering as so many of the roads are.

 They use a traffic light system so that the tunnel is only one way at a time.



 

 

Just on the other side of this range we stopped just outside the avalanche zone and walked into Gertrude Saddle. Again over the top with stunning views added to by the fairly frequent roars of avalanches both on our side of the mountain and on the far side - we even saw a couple as they happened! - it is Spring time here!

 An added joy was seeing a couple of wild Chamis goats frolicking in the snow line - lovely to see as there is really not very much wildlife to see in this awesome country.

 
That night we 'freedom' camped for the first time on an amazing river plain. This is were we slept soundly for 12 hours - the fresh air must be of a different strength down here!

 Malcolm as self appointed Jucy cook seemed to pick up a following of birds every place we stopped. At Milford it was Cheeky Keas, here it was a delicate South Island Robin and later in Glen Orchy it was Cheeky Charlie Chaffinches"

 Smooth dance moves!

 Raiding party.......after me lads.....

 He's behind you.......

 

To escape both the sandflies and the Keas we booked into a camp site in Te Anau and did a long walk 7 hour up the Kepler Track to the first hut and back. The walk was predominantly (6 hours!) through the lovely but rather monotonous beech forest - only getting above the tree line for just over an hour!

Back at sunset after a long day! - slept well (again!)

 



Magical Milford Sound

Well as you know we are moving to Auckland but before that we already had a weeks holiday booked down in Queenstown area of South Island.

We were SOOOO lucky with the weather, usually Milford sound is notorious for rain and lack of views, but during our time down south the only place in NZ which had a sun on the weather forecast was Milford and Queenstown area!

We also tried a new adventure in accommodation - we hired a small Jucy campervan, which was excellent fun and so comfortable that one night we both slept 12 hours! Unheard of for Malcolm!

 

This is the Jucy cook!

Our first stop was Milford sound which although not far as the crow flies from Queenstown it takes 5+ hours by car as the road goes 3 sides of a square to get round the mountain ranges! The scenery was superb just like the weather. We did a small walk on the Routeburn Track from the Divide up to Key Summit. I have rarely seen mountains so glorious. Superlatives were not enough!

 

 

 

We stayed at Milford Sound to avoid the huge number of tour buses that bring 1000's of tourists each day - so we did our Jucy Cruise early the next morning and saw the sound looking perfect - we even saw a whale in the sound - how lucky were we!

 

 To Malcolm New Zealand meant Milford Sound - so it was extra special for him to see it for real. - it was cold though!

  This gives an idea of scale - see the other crise boat?

As well as the whale we got fairly close up and personal to the Fairy Falls where there is a permanent rainbow!

  Unfortunately the tourists were not the only thing at Milford in hoards - sandflies were enjoying the sun as well! so the Jucy cook had to resort to a head net whilst cooking an excellent bacon and egg sandwich after the cruise.

 

We had hoped to do a day walk on the Milford Track but there was no water taxis working to cross the sound to the start, as the Great Walk season does not start until October. So we headed back to Te Anau.