Freejan

I will try to be brief as I get more and more tired each day; especially as moving every day at the moment. O have hopefully gained a day as the weather was so blustery in Invercargill that they cancelled the ferry back from Stewart Island so the people there couldn’t go back to Queenstown that day. I then got a place on the bus from Queenstown this morning so only had to stay one night. During the morning yesterday we went for a short tour round the Catlins starting at the Southland museum and gallery where I saw a Tuatara – a rare lizard peculiar to New Zealand- a new father in 2009 at the age of 111 years! Strangely enough we had stayed at the Tuatara lodge. We stopped first at Waipapu Point to see a lighthouse that was built there after a ship wreck in 1881 when 131 people died. The wind was amazingly strong and we had a job to stay stood up! The toilets there were a seat on a pedastal over a hole which allowed the strong wind to blow up your bottom! Very disconcerting! We drove along to Porpoise Bay where I saw a yellow eyed penguin just as it set off for the sea. Again, we had to hold on to each other to stay up. No wonder the ferry was cancelled! We settled in for the drive up to Queenstown looking at the amazing views as usual round here!
I had a bad night in The Base at Queenstown due to some very noisey room mates coming in drunk at 3am. I had some chicken fatijas and a couple of beers and tried to go to bed early.
We had a new driver from Te Anau – Heemi- I think I mentioned him. He drove us up to Queenstown and today Natalie picked us up. Very organised woman. I sat in the front with her for the half day drive up to Mt Cook/ Aoraki. We stopped at Mrs Jones’s fruit shop again and then proceeded to drive along and over the Lindis Pass ( named after Lindisfarne in Scotland). Stunning scenery AGAIN all the way. We passed Twizel, a pop up town made so that an electricity station could be built, with a view to dismantling it when the work was done. The people liked it there so built a town!
As we approached our lodge we got the first sight of Mt Cook with Lake Pukagi in the valley below. It never ceases to amaze me how pale milky blue the water is in these glacial lakes. I am now catching up on myself and decided I need a sleep while the keen young things go for a hike. Tramping is the name for long hikes here. Hoping to do whale watching when back in Kaikoura. Might as well be hung for a sheep…..money going down down!

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