BootsnAll Travel Network



Oamaru, Te Anua, Milford Sound, Queenstown – February 26 – March 2, 2007

The next day we drove through beautiful Christchurch, then stopped further down the coast in Oamaru, a quiet town known for its limestone constructed buildings, turn of the century architecture and colonies of blue and yellow-eyed penguins. It is reportedly the furthest point North to sight the nearly extinct animals so we took another walk out to the coast at dusk. We were treated to some far off views of the creatures returning to their nests in the dunes from a day at sea, but we couldn’t get as excited as the other bird watchers after we were spoiled with our time close to the seals.

After a drive further south through the buzzing university town of Dunedin, we turned inland and headed to Te Anau, our base for exploring Milford Sound. We found a nice private room at a hostel overlooking the enormous Lake Te Anau and rushed to make the 75-mile drive into the park before sunset. Many people spend 4 or 5 days hiking the trails with breathtaking views into Milford Sound (supposedly the finest hike in NZ) but for those with limited time the drive can be made in a few hours with stops at many of the best spots. Our favorites were the mirror lakes, set right beside a series of mountains in perfect position to catch a mirrored view; the many viewpoints from the mountain-hugging road of the streams, valleys and cliff-side waterfalls, the 1200 meter tunnel through the heart of a mountain, and The Chasm. The Chasm is difficult to explain but the sight of it made the whole drive, possibly the whole trip to the South Island, worthwhile. Picture a raging river coming down a mountain with a series of waterfalls over boulders the size of a small house. Then, right at the point of viewing (actually a creaky bridge built over the river) the water plunges with an echo into a canyon below you where the hard boulders have fallen perfectly apart and the water has hollowed out its course through soft rock (Swiss cheese like tunnels) over thousands of years. The final stop was the head of Milford Sound itself, an enormous cove with mountains charging up on all sides. This area is best explored by a boat cruise due to its magnitude so we left that for our next trip to New Zealand.

The next day we made the short drive up to Queenstown where we would rest for two nights. We were well aware of the town’s status as the adventure capitol of NZ and the resulting hoards of tourists from the guidebook, but we had no idea how beautiful and captivating the place would be. Set on the serpentine-shaped Lake Wakatipu and surrounded by mountains (aptly named The Remarkables), Queenstown is the Aspen or Park City of NZ. It is the postcard-picture-perfect mountain town with sleek and modern Swiss ski lodge-style architecture, spotless shop-lined streets, quaint bed and breakfasts, restaurants and bars, hotels and tiny resorts and world class snow skiing. The difference though is it all sits on a huge, crystal clear pebble lined lake. There’s a small marina right in town and sailboats line the waters edge. A golden-sand public beach sits right in the heart of town. Rose gardens grow steps from the beach next to a tiny wine bar. Parks with duck ponds, sporting areas, nature trails and ice-skating rinks run along the weaving waterfront and jut out into the lake on peninsulas. Dogs run free as their masters strolled or exercised or sent them in the lake to fetch a stick. There are also endless summer activities like bungy jumping, wake boarding, river rafting and jet boat cruises. But, as with other towns we’ve loved along the way, we spent every minute we could just absorbing the surroundings, strolling and finding the best burger and homemade dark chocolate in the world. It truly is a town perfect for visiting in the summer or winter.

Along our way up the West Coast of the South Island we stopped at the Franz Joseph Glacier National Park, renowned for its glacier that has advanced down the mountain closer to the ocean than any other at that latitude. The glacier is best viewed by taking a $150 tour to hike on the ice so we did the Schroeder 10-minute tour and saw it from the lookout spot. It looks like any snow or ice covered mountain and we found it quite forgettable, especially given the warm season, bus loads of tourists, the rip off tours and the nearby built-overnight-for-the-tourist-boom “town” with ridiculous prices and no vacancy. We joked and renamed it the Franz No-Seph (as in no taking our money this time) and made our way further north to spend the night at a quirky little seaside Jade mining town called Hokitika. The prices were dirt-cheap here ($21 for a private room, $80 2 hrs away by Franz Joseph) and there were no buses full of tourists. The people were also really friendly here, inviting us back the next weekend for a wild foods festival, at which they apparently cook and eat things like moths, snails, grasshoppers and giant tree slugs in the Maori tradition. Too bad we had to miss that!

We stopped for a night in Nelson hoping to get out to the huge Able Tasman National Park but we were disappointed to find out that the only transport into the park is by trail hiking or water transport. We would have to save this for our next trip as well, although we had had plenty of good hikes while in New Zealand. Our last day and night on the South Island we spent back in Picton, where we sat in the sun at a bay front park and listened to bands play classic American Rock at a town festival. It was strange hearing “Sweet Home Alabama” this far away but it was a nice way to start our countdown to going home. After two nights back in Auckland we would be on a plane to Italy and we were ready for the change of pace and knew that time would begin to fly by…beginning our countdown to seeing Morgan.



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