My Best Two Weeks in NZ (so far)-Part 2- The Southern Scenic Route

When we last left our gentle readers, it was Wednesday November 11, 2010 in Dunedin. Our intrepid tramping party of three Wallace sibs had met up with Fayne the night before. Fayne and I spent the morning in the Immigration Office trying to get our work visas extended beyond the 22nd so as to not become illegal aliens. This included a trip to the courthouse to swear we were in a real, not a sham, domestic partnership. Mission accomplished. Next, it was time to deposit Las Hermanas Wallace at the airport. Since they were first off on a brief domestic hop to Christchurch, there was no problem escorting them to the gate. The Dunedin Airport was surprisingly pleasant with good shopping (Athena and Cheryl got a lot of good retail therapy done.)

Heading south, we took the Southern Scenic Route, which winds in a U-shape from Dunedin to Te Anau. First stop, Balclutha, a small town noteworthy to me as the first place I almost worked in New Zealand. I won't go into details, but the job description discussed on the phone was different than the contract sent, so I declined. I had a helpful contact there, Irene Mosley, a woman working as a recruitment coordinator for the hospital. She left a standing invitation to drop by when going through, so we did. She kindly showed us around the hospital and town, and took us to lunch. I got the impression (let me clear these were NOT her words) that the hospital treated American locums physicians like rented mules. I think I made the right choice.
The road led along the coast, sometimes on unpaved (unsealed, as they say here) roads, past too many waterfalls, views, and walks to savor in one afternoon.

Purakaunui Falls

Florence Hill Lookout

Our destination for the night was Invercargill, near the bottom of the South Island. This is another place we almost lived, but we chose Timaru for a better climate- less rain, wind, and cold. Again, a good choice. Invercargill is noted for a few things. The Southland museum is home to the largest collection of tuataras, a fascinating reptile, the closest living relative of the dinosaur. Most famous of all is Henry, the 110+ yo patriarch. It is also the hometown of favorite son Burt Munro, immortalized by Anthony Hopkins in the film "The World's fastest Indian". Here is a replica of his bike made for the film.
Invercargill is a long, straight town laid out in a strict rectangular grid. Landmarks include the 1888 brick water tower and the quite magnificent central Queens Park, featuring tall walls of rhododendrons.
It is also en route to its harbor at Bluff,
the stepping-off point to Stewart Island, essentially a nature preserve for native New Zealand flora and fauna. You arrive in the only tiny town on the island, Oban.

We were essentially on a day-tripping visit, but made time to take a cruise to Ulva Island, one of many islands intended as a predator-free safe haven.Of all creatures, New Zealand is most hospitable to birds, and they are found in abundance.

A Robin (I think)

The rainforest is home to exotic plants and flowers, like these tiny orchids.

I would love to come back to hike across one of the longer trails, but it was time to resume our trip up the Western side of the Southern Scenic Route. We weren't prepared for the beauty of this. (It is as if there are so many beautiful vistas in NZ they tire of bragging about them all.) This was the view of Te Waewae Bay at McCracken's Rest.

We were headed to Manapouri on the lake of the same name to start our next adventure, an overnight cruise on Doubtful Sound aboard the Fiordland Navigator. This fiord is south of Milford Sound, and was named by Capt. James Cook, who was doubtful he would have enough wind to turn his ship around if he entered it. Our voyage began with a trip across Lake Manapouri  to the western edge.

Here, mountains of granite separate the deep alpine lake from the sea. Clever engineers in the 1960's built a power station 200 m. deep down to generate electricity by drawing water from the lake. This project was the beginning of the Green Movement in NZ, because the initial plan also called for raising the level of the lake 30 meters, flooding a huge area. Kiwis arouse en masse, changed governments, and halted that part of the project..
From the end of the lake, you board a bus to go over Wilmont pass on a road built and still maintained by the power company, descending to Deep Cove on the sound to board our vessel. Unlike earlier at Milford, it was now cloudy and drizzling most of the time, which made it perfect to see hundreds of waterfalls. With the mist and water, it was really a Middle Earth experience. Judge for yourselves.

Fun, comfortable, quiet except for the sound of running water and naturalist's intermittent commentary. Of course there were some penguins, dolphins, fur seals, and birds. (See my last posting from Milford for more of that.)  Saturday morning, as we returned on the bus over the pass, the skies had cleared enough for this view of Doubtful Sound.

We drove from Manapouri to Wanaka (again, see the previous blog entry) to spend the night. I was struck by these lovely, multicolored foxgloves (Margaret corrects me: they are lupin) (there may be heaps like this by Hwy 1, for all I know). Sunday, back to Timaru to begin my second phase/overtime with work, concluding my best two weeks in New Zealand (so far)!

Athena and Cheryl Visit- aka: My Best Two Weeks in NZ (so far)-Part I

Today's blog is dedicated to Arthur Rock- San Francisco Venture Capitalist Extraordinaire- minority owner of the WORLD CHAMPION SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS and holder and gracious benefactor of the greatest seats at Giants' games. He interested Athena in hiking the Milford Track over one year ago which got the ball rolling for this trip. It was dubbed "the finest walk in the world" by poet Blanche Baughan in 1908, an irresistible if unprovable public-relations slogan. So in January of this year, after Athena coaxed Cheryl to come "shotgun", we reserved spots on a guided tramp through Fiordland.
Athena and Cheryl arrived in Auckland late October, and worked their way down the North Island to Wellington, where Fayne and I went up to meet them on Halloween (some festivities, but not a huge deal here-much less candy).

Oct 31 in Wellington

Wellington is always worth a visit, especially Te Papa, the National Museum. They had a great exhibit of famed NZ photographer Brian Brake.

The ferry across the Cook Straight between the North and South Islands runs between Wellington and Picton,a charming port town,

Picton Harbor

 and runs through the narrow and picturesque Charlotte Sound.It was a wee bit chilly, but fun. Then we headed south again though Kaikoura en route to Christchurch. On our way north, Fayne and I took a cruise to see the famous Kaikoura adolescent male sperm whales. Sorry, this was the best I could capture on camera (not

much by Mendo standards).We had a better view of the fur seals.We stopped both coming and going at the roadside BBQ for fresh seafood, including the mandatory crayfish, or spiny lobster. (YUM!!)
Then it was off to Christchurch for a night- time for a Thai dinner with Michelle Dhanak and her family(see prior Christchurch blog entries). In the morning we visited the Canterbury Museum, where one of the highlights is The Paua House, a tribute to "Kiwiana" originally from a house in Bluff in farthest south NZ. It is chock-full of paua (abalone) shells, jandals, Buzzy Bees, tikis, and all things New Zealand.

On to Timaru for a look at our current "home town" for a night. No time to linger, Wednesday we went off south, first to Aoraki/Mount Cook for a hike up a roaring glacial river, across swing bridges, by lakes, to the foot of this magnificent peak. Wow. Truly one of my favorite places here.

Days are getting longer, so we still had time to get to Wanaka for the night. Wanaka is a lot like Queenstown, but less busy, also on the edge of a pristine alpine lake. Thursday morning we continued our crash training for the Big Walk, so we climbed to the top of Iron Mountain with its lovely views.

We needed to get down to Queenstown late in the afternoon for our orientation for the trek, but had time for a luxurious lunch at an area winery. The big adventure started Friday morning as we made our way to the buses that would take us to Te Anau, then a boat across the lake to the trail head.

In the beginning...

DAY 1: Bus to boat to trail to lodge. Easy day, nice nature walk, lovely Glade House Lodge and dinner. The party was bigger than I expected, with about 40 people, 20 Japanese and 20 mixed group of Aussie, Yanks, Brits, with four Kiwi guides. Things are more socially interactive than I expected, but the group was quite agreeable and entertaining, not a lemon in the group.

DAY 2: Things are picking up, a 10-mile gently uphill walk to the Pompolona Lodge through beech forests, some pygmy forest, flowers,

Mount Cook lilies

The Weka

birds, glaciers, waterfalls. I promised my mother that I would keep my sisters safe from harm, but danger was all around.
The weather was sunny the whole trip, very unusual we discovered (maybe one out of 20 trips). Sometimes the rain is so intense that everyone is soaked, carrying packs over heads, never drying out for the five days. We would not have liked that.

DAY 3: This was the BIG ONE, by far the hardest time on the trip, up and down over the 1,069m/3,507 ft Mackinnon Pass, 9 miles. It was a very beautiful day, but by the end we all shared a pride of accomplishment (and fatigued and jostled bodies).

It was a great day, and reminded us of our trip down the Colorado River 10 years back. It was a treat to see the mischievous highly-intelligent mountain parrot, the kea.
The last downhill mile was particularly looong, but after a brief rest, we took a 1.5 hr side trip to Sutherland Falls, the world's fifth or ninth or something in the world at 580m/1904 ft.
We all needed a good rest at the very comfortable Quintin Lodge.

DAY 4: This was the final day of hiking, longest distance at 13.5 miles, but generally down-sloping along rivers, lakes, and lots of waterfalls.

Mackay Falls

Fantail

I got close to several small birds

A rifleman, perhaps?

and ferns.
The highlight of the day was Cheryl's dip in the chilly pool at the base of Giant's Gate Falls.

The low-light of the day was the ubiquitous presence of the sand fly. The ravenous females of the species loved to bite and feed off my arms and legs causing itchy mementos of my trip which lasted a week. It was all worth it when we arrived in Milford after a short ride across the sound from Sandfly Point (I guess that should have been a clue!). We were rewarded with a magical view of New Zealand icon Mitre Peak from the window of my room.
That night it was time for a salmon and lamb dinner with our guides and one last night of socializing with this convivial group after a prolonged ceremony at which each of us received a Certificate of Achievement  and a chance to say a few words (or in the case of the Japanese, share a song and/or dance).


DAY 5: Our final day on the trek featured a cruise on Milford Sound, with an look at fur seals, bottlenose dolphins, and the most rare Fiordland crested penguin. This is the best photo I got of the endangered bird.
Later I got this closer photo of an ex-penguin at the Southland Museum in Invercargill.

The trip through the sound (fiord, technically: something about a sea-filled river valley vs. glacial valley) was as advertised, but with tens instead of hundreds of waterfalls due to the five-day "drought". My next post about Doubtful Sound will reflect a wetter Fiordland experience.
After the cruise, it was back via bus on the spectacular Milford Highway through Homer Tunnel, 1219 m through solid granite, on to Queenstown, then a 3 hour drive to Dunedin. We met up with Fayne there, who had stayed behind in Timaru during the trek. After dropping Athena and Cheryl off at the airport on Wednesday, Nov 10, we continued on down to see the rest of the Southland. (To be continued.)