Saturday 20 April
Jan and Talitha collected me 9:45am to visit Colleen at Peacehaven. Colleen did not know it was her birthday (87years), and when told it was today said “No, my birthday is in April”. We left it at that. She accepted that I was Ian, but I think she did not really recognise me. I did talk to her about the Howe farm and her pony Cheeky, to which she responded knowingly. Although her memory is all over the place, physically she can feed herself and crack jokes with the family, but she is not aware that husband Ron has passed away, and the family go along with this. The photo of the four of us was taken on Jan’s iPhone and emailed to me.
Talitha and Jan to my left.
Earlier in the week I emailed Jan to say I would like to take her and Sharon’s families out to a meal while I am visiting and for her to choose the date, time and venue and book for the numbers attending in my name. (Julie is still estranged from her sisters due to ongoing legal issues about the monies she took from Ron’s estate). Nine of us met at the Pizzeria 5:30pm this evening, Jan and husband James, Talitha and husband Hayden, Sharon and husband Ken, Jan’s daughter Acacia, Sharon’s granddaughter Beverly, and me. We left the restaurant at 7:45 with leftover pizza – everyone of us (without asking) was given a pizza box near the end of the meal in order to take home what we did not finish. In addition the Manager at the restaurant gave us a complimentary dessert pizza because Jan had told them this get-together was a special occasion with their not having seen me for 7 years.
Sunday 21 April
Sunday started wet and windy as I travelled down to Bluff, but the weather cleared for a good view of the township from Bluff Hill Lookout.
Bluff Port has its own island serviced by road and rail.
Across the other side of the Harbour entrance is the Tiwai Point Aluminium Smelter, seen here as rainclouds begin to lift.
On the town side of the harbour entrance is the pilot station which sits on the rocky foreshore frequented by oyster catchers.
This guy was busy feeding while keeping a watchful eye on me, so becomes the first bird of this week.
At Stirling Point, the southern end of Bluff, the legendary story of Maui fishing up New Zealand from the ocean is represented by a recent sculpture.
Maui, standing in his canoe (the South Island), steadied himself by anchoring the canoe (Stewart Island being the anchor) while he fished up the giant fish which became the North Island. Here we see the anchor chain bolted onto the bottom of the South Island while stretching out over the foreshore towards Stewart Island.
From Bluff it was through Invercargill and Riverton to take the scenic coastal route via Orepuki then up to Tuatapere.
Orepuki’s leaning trees were listed as one of the several local sites of interest.
Tuatapere’s reputation as the sausage capital of New Zealand has taken a bit of a hit as the last time Lexie and I passed through seven years ago the butchers shop was shuttered up.
However, the image of the Tuatapere “sausage” is still used by the tourist industry to publicise one of the country’s best wilderness walks.
From Tuatapere the scenic route runs through farming country past the road into Lake Monowai, one of the country’s earliest hydroelectric schemes. I featured the lake in the Beacons documentary because when they raised the lake to increase the head for power generation all the shoreline trees died and became stumps sticking up out of the water. I took the Lookout Walk from the carpark at the head of the lake to check on this situation 38 years after filming there.
It was still a mess, but the lake itself was a great sight.
Lake Monowai provides water to the power station and is still operating since commissioned in 1926.
While walking in to the lake lookout a South Island male tomtit began fluttering around me, dashing from branch to branch in on the forest tempting me to take pictures. They all turned out blurry. But on the return walk he took pity on me, and set himself up on a tree branch as though to say, “here I am, and you can now take my picture”
“Would you like my left side?”
“Or maybe you prefer my right side?”
This posturing went on for some time as he changed positions on the branch, so these two best shots are my second bird of the week.
Re farming activity, the Southland farmland from Riverton to Manapouri was primarily sheep country with densely packed mobs grazing on rich green grassland.
Sheep were always interested in what I was up to with the camera.
Monday 22 April
Monday morning at Tasman Holiday Park in Te Anau was clean-up time with the motorhome given an internal and external “spring clean”. The afternoon was my visit to the Te Anau Glowworm Caves. This involved boat travel from the harbour on Te Anau waterfront up past the South Fiord and Deadman’s Point to the west side of the lake.
The “Luminosa” took the 2pm tour up the lake with around 50 of us on the trip.
The caves were known about from local Maori lore, but it was 1948 that they were “rediscovered” by Europeans and guided visits began. They consist of two sections, total length 6.7km – the upper Aroura Cave system 30 to 35 million years old, and the more recently formed lower Te Anau Glowworm Caves system, 250m in length and around 12,000 years old.
The upper Aroura system consists of four levels of interconnecting passages accessible only by diving though submerged tunnels. The 250m cave walk is above the roaring Tunnel Burn stream on steel grid walkways bolted to the sides of the chasm though which the stream flows. The cave is totally different from Waitomo Glowworm Caves with their stalagmites, stalactites and huge caverns, and where the glow worm boat trip is on a lake in a huge cavern with the whole ceiling glowing all around you.
Here the 250m climbing walk is in a narrow 3m wide cleft with layered limestone walls reaching up to 40m high. Each layer of limestone is about 15 to 20mm thick with a thin black band separating each grey coloured layer. The Tunnel Burn thunders through the cleft a metre or so below the walkway tumbling over waterfalls on its way to its outlet to the lake.
The boat trip to view the glow worms was through a low roofed tunnel (about a metre above our heads) to a ponded turning area with the glow worms in occasional pockets in depressions in the tunnel ceiling, nowhere near as spectacular as Waitomo.
This publicity photo shows how cramped the glow worm viewing experience is – of course we had no lights and had to remain totally silent during the 20 minute boat ride. Then it was back down the walkway the way we came in. Two sections of the walk involved crouching low to pass under the roof of the cleft, and at other times we had to watch out for low headroom.
Tuesday 23 April
In the morning I drove down to Manapouri to look at Pearl Harbour where boat trips left for a day trip to Doubtful Sound (boat to the power station, then bus to Doubtful Sound).
Pearl Harbour at Lake Manapouri.
Then it was north, with a cuppa at Te Anau Downs in the Mistletoe Lake carpark. Lexie and I did the Mistletoe Lake walk in November 2013, so I repeated the walk to see if anything had changed much.
Mistletoe Lake, 2013, with the camera on the picnic table.
Mistletoe Lake this past week, with the picnic table having received a coat of paint since last visit 11 years ago. The bush by my right ear has grown a bit if it is the same one.
The Mirror Lakes further up the road had story boards and a modern walkway since 11 years ago, with me once more having to dodge crowds of Chinese tourists to get my photos.
There were loads of good reflections at Mirror Lakes on this visit with this being one of the best.
Tuesday night and Wednesday night I camped at the DoC camping area in Cascade Creek which provides direct access to the lake Gunn Nature Walk. I took the walk late afternoon before rain set it. The beech forest included loads of old fallen trees, all covered in green spongey moss. Even living trees have up to a two metre high mass of moss around the trunks. The whole forest is sort of “snug” with moss.
Lake Gunn with rain advancing down the Lake toward Cascade creek.
However, the view from the van at the campsite next day was typical of the Eglington Valley landscape.
The Earl Mountain Range southwest of Lake Gunn. The cloud layer in the valley below the mountain tops hung around day and night for the two days at Cascade Creek.
Wednesday 24 April
Camp Gunn in the lower Hollyford was my day trip on Wednesday. Many of its accommodation huts were wreaked by a huge landslip which bundled down the hills above the camp during a big storm in 2021, thus closing the camp for good.
We visited Murray Gunn at the camp in January 1996 (above photo).
Now the place is a sorry sight. The main two buildings were untouched by the landslide but many of the cabins to the right of the “Hollyford Camp” building (Murray and I were standing where that green box is) are now under rubble.
Thursday 25 April
After raining all Wednesday night it was still raining heavily from 7:10 am Thursday (ANZAC Day) when I left Cascade Creek to drive through to Milford Sound. The steep mountains on either side of the valley up to the Homer Tunnel were covered with waterfalls.
The downhill exit from the Homer Tunnel on the Milford side.
Both sides of the valley were streaming with water just as seen above and below. As the road wended its way downhill through the forest it was littered with beech tree leaves and small branches stripped overnight by the downpour. Rivers were beginning to rise.
Miles of streaming slopes both sides of the Homer Tunnel.
Thursday night after an excellent dinner in the Pio Pio Restaurant at Milford Lodge I had to run for the van in a loud thunderstorm with bucketing rain. The Lodge sent out an email before dinner to say that the Homer Tunnel was closing early in the evening and that snow was expected overnight.
Friday 26 April
Today was Milford Sound cruising day. As I was about to set off early at 9:00am for the Cruise Visitor Centre, the sun came out and mist on the mountain tops began to lift, and all the tops were covered in snow.
Mitre Peak looked superb in its cloak of white, but it was short lived as cloud descended on the tops as we left on our cruise at 10:30 in rain.
Cloud and rain coming in from the west.
The trip was really great with good views and commentary on all the features of interest. Of course the waterfalls attracted the most attention from photographers.
Bowen Falls just around the corner from the boat terminus.
The Four Sisters Falls ——
—– and the Stirling Falls, which the boat nosed into on the return journey.
We could not get much closer than this.
About 1/3rd of the travellers on our cruise were dropped off at the Underwater Observatory, and were picked up by a separate boat 3/4hr later.
Both the reception building and the underwater observatory are floating structures, with the top of the observation section on the far right.
There are 60 steps down (the height of a 3 story building) and a circular observation area at a depth of 10 metres has loads of windows. The water was a little murky as a result of all the runoff over the last 2 days of heavy rainfall, but external lights attracted fish to the windows for good viewing. However it was hard to get good focus though the thick plate glass windows.
These fish with their black spot were present in their dozens, accompanied by 100s of teeny little fish that can just be seen on the right of the frame. Then there is the coral growths.
There were only a few of this type of fish around, here pictured over one of the external trays on which marine life was growing.
And so as our cruise ended at 1pm it was the time that bus loads from Queenstown and Te Anau had arrived for their 2hr voyage up the sound. From Queenstown it is a 12 hour day, 5 hours in the bus each way, and 2 hours on the water. Whew!! And yet thousands do this trip each season.
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