Sunday 23 February:
I headed south toward Te Anau from Cascades DoC campsite first thing this morning to the Earl Mountain Walks, thinking I would get a good hour of walking in to start the day. However, the trail was initially through forest but within 50 metres degenerated into tree roots and a waterlogged bog. I immediately revised my plans for the day, and because the sun was rising in a clear sky (totally different from yesterday’s low cloud and mist) I decided to go back up to the Homer Tunnel, and get some sunlit photos of places I really could not see yesterday.
Early morning reflections on Lake Gunn.
Traffic from Milford emerging into the sunlight on the top end of the Homer Tunnel. The passenger in the van has a big smile on her face, “warmth at last” (as seen when enlarging the original photo), as they have just come from the cold shady valley leading from Milford Sound up to the tunnel entrance.
I then stopped off at the Lower Hollyford viewpoint that was shrouded in mist yesterday
.The view across to the Lake Marion valley, 11am on Saturday ——
—– and the same view today, 10am.
On the road back to Te Anau I could not resist a morning view of the Eglington Valley grasslands —–
—— nor the sunlit reflections at the Mirror Lakes {minus disturbance from the diving ducks).
Monday 24 February:
Te Anau to Arrowtown was today’s objective. First stop not far out of Te Anau was at “The Wilderness” reserve where a remnant of the soils and vegetation of some 8,000 to 10,000 years ago has been preserved.
This wilderness has an ancient mix of shrubs, lichens mosses and herbs ——
—— that have survived infertile soil and freezing -7 degree winters for millennia.
The countryside from Mossburn through Five Rivers, Athol, and Garston to Kingston was familiar country to me, having set out survey pegs for new bridges and road alignment improvements in this area while working out of Invercargill in 1958 for the Ministry of Works. I even surveyed the amount of land that would be flooded if Lake Manapouri was raised to the level of Lake Te Anau in furtherance of a massive hydro power scheme that was ultimately rejected by the community, with the Government backtracking to the current scheme and Lake Manapouri staying at its original level.
The upper catchment of the Mataura River near Athol is deer country, but this was the closest I could get to one.
Garston has a café and “Hunny Shop” ——-
—– with this mascot on the roof, ——
—– while just up the road is the terminus for the Kingston Flyer Sunday train excursion (Kingston to Fairlight return).
Do your remember when TVNZ brought out its new Rolling Ball logo with the ball featured in scenic locations all over NZ? One such location had the Ball rolling along the platform here at Fairlight.
This photo board was located at the Kingston Railway Station. Do you remember the famous 1975 Cadbury’s Crunchie Train Robbery advertisement shot on the train? A classic still today.
In the late 1970s the Kingston Flyer ran day trips Lumsden to Kingston return, with Lexie, Calum and me taking the trip. The line has long closed and is now a cycle trail except for the Kingston-Fairlight section still in use for Sunday trips and private excursions.
The engine in the above billboard (No. 778) is in dusty storage at the Kingston Waterfront, while engine No. 795 (above) is the one in use each Sunday.
These carriages currently in use are real vintage.
From Kingston I drove up alongside Lake Wakatipu to Queenstown and took the new town centre bypass into town to checkout parking for my lake trip on Tuesday. This controversial multi-million dollar project opened a couple of weeks ago.
As shown within many other roadworks featured in these Travel Notes, Maori designs have been used on retaining walls.
I discovered the all-day parking area I have used in the past for Queenstown visits required a credit card swipe for payment, which of course I could not do (the new card being mailed to Bethlehem after last week’s hacking incident and card cancellation). However a QR code on the parking machine gave me access to download to my phone a PayMyPark app with which I could set up an account, top up the account with money (easily done with my GoMoney ANZ app) and then use it the next day to pay for parking.
Tuesday 25 February::
I arrived at the Boundary Road parking area 7.30am, opened the PayMyPark app on the phone, entered the number of the nearest parking machine plus the van rego number, dialed up the time required (through to 5.30pm) and clicked on “pay” and that was it. [When the 5.30 time arrived the app sent a reminder and asked if I wanted to extend the time, but I was already back in the van and had left the parking area.]
I stayed in the van as steady and heavy rain set in 8.00 to 10.30 after which it cleared, eventually by 1pm becoming a warm sunny day for the trip to Walter Peak and the Gourmet BBQ lunch.
The Spirit of Queenstown passing in front of the Gardens peninsula prior to berthing for our trip.
The TSS Earnslaw berthed shortly after. It picked up a crowd of day trippers and followed us up to Walter Peak, taking 40 minutes compared to our 20 minute voyage.
We had a young lady trainee skipper berthing and operating our departures, with the main skipper taking over for the voyage ——-
——– while she got back to her maritime studies homework using a RealNZ training manual.
The Walter Peak original homestead is now a restaurant and hospitality complex.
We made our way to our section of the restaurant through extensive well-kept gardens.
There were two Aussie couples and me from the Spirit of Queenstown booked for the Gourmet BBQ lunch at 2pm (the rest on our voyage were headed for Bobs Cove across the lake), but when the Earnshaw arrived 1.45pm about 150 more people joined us for the lunch.
The BBQ meats were excellent as was the full buffet service main courses and desserts. The Aussie couples were golfers and had sampled the course at Millbrook Resort ahead of the 2025 NZ Open starting this Thursday.
After lunch we were treated to the Walter Peak Farm Show hosted by shepherdess Ashley and her two Border Collie sheep dogs.
This was a very well-staged event —–
—– with Ashley explaining her relationship with her two dogs, and told us that a well-trained Collie can be worth up to $10,000.
She then went on to demonstrate her sheep shearing skills —–
—- before sending Mia way up to the top of the hill to bring down previously shorn sheep —-
—– into the field behind the stage.
Job well done Mia! These dogs never bark at the sheep – their control is eye to eye, as you can see here.
The Earnslaw picked up its contingent from the wharf before our boat came in for us for our return to Queenstown.
The Earnslaw had a good head start on the voyage back to town, although we did catch it up in spite of leaving 20 minutes later.
So, how would I rate the day out – I submitted my review to RealNZ as 5 stars out of 5.
Wednesday 26 February:
Today was an Arrowtown based day walking some 3-plus km to and around Millbrook Resort, enjoying a first-class lunch at their Hole in One Café, then walking 2½ km back to the village.
Before heading along the river trail leading to the walk to Millbrook, I checked out the entrance road leading to the Macetown historic goldmining area. Two Nomad guided tour vehicles passed me on their way to the first ford on the Macetown stream, each packed with 8 sightseers and a driver. It is a 2 to 3 hour return drive on a steep narrow unmaintained roadway.
Lexie and I hired a 4-WD Toyota Land Cruiser for our trip to Macetown in January 1990 (photo taken by Lexie). It involved 20 stream crossings and long sections of tortuous cliff-side one-way track. We felt a real sense of achievement on completing this, to us, “daring” event.
In case you are wondering, I did come back for her.
Arriving at Millbrook Resort the walking and cycle trail passed right alongside the golf course area, and down the Avenue of past NZ Open Winners.
Everyone will remember Bob Charles exemplary record both in the Open and in subsequent seniors tournaments worldwide.
The practice putting green was very busy.
Major Sponsors of the Open are Manuka Doctor, who markets honey as well as honey based medications ——–
—– and Hyundai, who for some reason or other saw great marketing advantage by displaying their latest EV model in a duck pond —–
—— thereby displacing the residents for the duration of the tournament.
After that excellent lunch at the Hole in One Café it was back to Arrowtown and tiramisu for afternoon tea to finish my food intake for the day.
Thursday 27 February:
I headed out from Arrowtown after a final hot chocolate at Patagonia and dropped in at the Kawarau Bridge Bungy Centre.
The old 1880 suspension bridge now has two functions, first as a bungy jumping venue, and second as part of the Arrowtown to Cromwell cycle trail through Gibbston Valley.
This young lady leapt out with characteristic screams which then moderated to triumphal yells as she ——
—– avoided a dunking in the river. Each person is weighed before their jump so an appropriate size and length of elastic cord can be selected. The cost – $320 per jumper, and at 5 to 6 minutes between jumps, the company is probably doing quite well.
The new bridge just upstream of the old suspension bridge was being designed in the Ministry of Works Head Office in Wellington when I worked there in 1960.
The Clyde Dam visit I had hoped for this day did not eventuate as I was the only booking, and they needed a minimum of two persons to run a tour. So I headed for Crowell, stopping off at —–
—– the Roaring Meg Power Station in the Kawarau Gorge, a favourite view with loads of travelers taking photos.
After lunch at Lake Dunstan View in Cromwell I headed north to Shrek country.
Shrek was a Merino Ram who had escaped the annual shearing roundup at Bendigo Station at Tarras for over 7 years, creating a record wool clip when finally caught and shorn. His statue at Tarras commemorates this event.
Tarras has been a popular stopping point for us every time we travelled Cromwell to Omarama, and apart from Shrek has always been defined by another Central Otago animal in village signage.
Can you spot him in this latest village sign for the locality?
From Tarras I took the back road to the Red Bridge reserve near Luggate to freedom camp for the night. On arrival I took a walk in the trees between the overnight parking area and the Clutha River, and came across an initially baffling metal construction.
I suddenly realised I was at a Frisbee Golf Course, having remembered a TV item on the sport some months ago.
Players cast their Frisbees from a tiled “Tee” at the “hole” in the distance. This is Hole 8, which at 38m or 125 feet is a Par 3.
The player aims their specially designed Frisbee at the chains surrounding the centre pole, and if hitting them successfully the Frisbee drops into the catching basket (a hole in one is a possibility).
Friday 28 February:
I had arrived yesterday afternoon at the Luggate Bridge overnight freedom camping area around 3:30pm with around 5 or 6 of us parked up for the night. But by 9pm there were well over 100 motorhomes/campervans crowding the site and the off-road areas across from us.
Conversations you could hear as people settled in for the night indicated most were overseas travelers.
Hawea dam was my first walk for the day (30 minutes). This project was carried out at the same time as the Roxburgh Hydro scheme in the 1950s, with the 18m raising of Lake Hawea providing water storage to feed Roxburgh via the Hawea then Clutha rivers.
The outlet gates below the earth dam appeared to be operating at full bore.
The lake arm at the dam has special wildlife significance as a breeding area for the Southern Crested Grebe, a protected South Island bird of which there are only around 1,000 in the wild.
These birds do not walk well on land, and create nests from floating sticks and grasses to breed on water. Local wildlife supporters have provided a floating raft, walled on two sides to provide shelter for a grebe pair who have returned year after year to raise between 3 to 5 chicks a season.
Natural floating nests do not cope well with lake level rise and falls of up to 8m, nor with the local windy conditions, hence the provision of the shelter. When hatched the chicks climb onto a parent’s back where they are protected while being fed by the other parent. They become independent after around 6 weeks.
Lake Hawea is separated from Lake Wanaka by a very narrow pass with the road leading to the head of Lake Wanaka reaching the Makaroa Valley. After a 20 minute “sawmill” bushwalk at Makaroa I headed toward Haast Pass, stopping off at The Blue Pools walkway at Cameron Flat.
However, the two bridges providing access to the Blue Pools viewing location were closed, having reached the end of their operational life. This did not deter many walkers, like me, from taking the 45 minute forest return-hike to the first bridge.
There were people picnicking and swimming at the bridge site while contractors were threading new cross-supports through the old deck as part of the renewal process.
Lexie and I visited the Blue Pools in summer 1996 ——
—— and here she is looking down from the current “old” bridge close to where the contractors were working today.
I left the Blue Pools carpark area and travelled 2km down to my fourth walk of the day, 25 minutes return to the Cameron Flat Overlook.
Although a stiff climb in parts, this walk was well worth the view (Blue Pools parking area upper left of photo below the left edge of the domed mountain).
On the walk back I was treated to a view of a busy pigeon feeding on rich forest berries.
So, it was over the Haast Pass, down to the Gates of Haast Bridge and —–
—— rapids, and on to the DoC campsite at Pleasant Flat in the Haast River Valley.
From Pleasant Flat snow was visible covering the ridges leading up to the peak of Mount Solution in the Solution Range.
Saturday 1 March:
Another camping spot crowded with overnight vans – I managed to sneak away 7am before anyone else was awake, with my first walk (25 minutes through the forest) at Roaring Billy Falls.
The river bed is around 150m wide at the falls, and this whole tree was stranded during the last flood – these Westland rivers are powerful.
The Falls were modest, but in heavy rain would be a raging torrent.
Because heavy rain was forecast to be on its way, I took off through Haast Township up the coast to Ship Creek for a 20 minute Kahikatea Forest walk, and a 35 minute Lake Dunes and beach walk, completing these by 10am.
Wildlife on these walks consisted of sandflies (sorry, no photo), plus —-
— a South Island robin (and more sandflies) plus ——-
—– a fantail (and more sandflies).
The power of flood waters was evident in the forest trail walk which I did last year, and which Lexie and I have done twice over the years.
The left side of the track was in the past fully tree lined so you could hardly see the stream – now the bank has collapsed taking the forest into the stream bed.
The Dune Lakes are squeezed between the foreshore and the main highway, and are home to loads of fish and birdlife.
This morning they were perfect for reflections with quiet before the coming storm.
My fourth and final walk for the day was at the Hapuka Estuary close to Haast Junction and on the way to Jackson Bay.
The Haast Flats are rich farmland and cattle raising is a major activity (as viewed on my way to Hapuka River).
The 20 minute estuary walk comprises boardwalks and forest trail and viewpoints which Lexie and I have experienced each time we visited Haast over the years.
So, after lunch at Hapuka I checked in to the Haast River Motels & Holiday Park, set up camp, and finished off these notes as the rain sets in.
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