Milford Sound

“But wait…wasn’t this supposed to be a five day tour?” 

“By Jove you’re right, Holmes! What happened on the fifth day?”

Day 5

I’m glad you asked! Yes, we’ve finished the Milford Track, but we’re not yet done with Milford. As alluded to previously, Milford also has a Sound. Today’s itinerary consists of a cruise up and down Milford Sound…no walking involved! Huzzah!

Also, we didn’t have to get up bone-crackingly early. We still had to be up early-ish, though, as the cruise left at 8:30am, and we still had to do the lunchmaking routine, as the return journey isn’t catered at Te Anau. So up we were again, and this time we needed to remove our inner linings from our rucksacks (i.e. a strong bin liner provided at the outset, which acts as a further waterproof layer should we be deluged), and return them to Ultimate Hikes. Our bags were then loaded onto the bus, along with our lunches on our seats, and then we walked (gasp!) the 10 minutes down to the dock, and awaited our cruise departure.

We joined the throng on the open top deck once we were away from the dock, and had a coffee and tea in the morning sunshine. Around us were the sheer cliffs of Milford Sound, or, as the captain explained over the PA, the fjord. Back in the 19^th century when it was named by Captain Grono, after Milford Haven in Wales, fjord wasn’t in the English lexicon. But it is a fjord, as it was created by glaciation, so it should properly be called Milford Fjord. There were waterfalls, there were blue skies, there were mountains. And then the captain told us there was a pod of dolphins up ahead, and he manoeuvred us into viewing position so that we could take pictures. Further on there was also a seal colony. He took us out almost to the opening of the fjord, with views out over the Tasman Sea – if you keep going you’ll eventually hit West Island – then turned us around, took us in for another close-up view of the seal colony, and also into the spray of one of the waterfalls.

So long...

New Zealand seal prefers kipping on its back

The rest of the day was spent on the bus back to Te Anau, and then Queenstown, where we arrived at around 3:30pm. Knackered as we were, we took a taxi up to the hotel, got ourselves organised, and headed down the hill again for a final swan around Queenstown and dinner at Public Kitchen and Bar, where they serve you a whole pavlova if you order it as dessert.

Day 6

Wait, whut? OK, not part of the tour, but we had a final appointment in Queenstown before we moved on. We (Nicola) had had the foresight to book us a relaxing massage for after the walk, so we checked out of the hotel for the last time, and took a taxi again down to the CBD. It was noticeable how much more traffic there was after Christmas compared to before, and the familiar Queenstown traffic jam up Frankton Road/Stanley Street was in force. We made it with minutes to spare. Our taxi driver, clearly a canny operator, had elicited from us the information that we were leaving today, and arranged to pick us up to take us to the airport later…good fares to the airport and back being meat and drink to her.

After the massage we lollygagged around Queenstown until lunchtime. The queue outside Fergburger was also back in force, although not at pre-covid lengths, so we dived into the bar next door, London Underground, and had a lunch of pasta and burger there instead.

That was about it for our Christmas adventure. Back onto a plane and back home before 5:00pm, and looking in the diary to see what was happening next.

 

A note on the weather: Milford Track, Milford Sound, and Fiordland generally experience a lot of precipitation. Rainfall averages 7m annually, with over 200 rain days. We were very lucky with the weather, with a shower in the afternoon of Day 2, and some light snow/hail on Day 3. Otherwise we were dry, and sunny most of the time. This is unusual. Many people do the track in pouring rain the whole time, and their enthusiasm for the hike can be somewhat dampened by this. We were prepared for rain, but were lucky not to really experience any significant amounts.

Luging

Amazingly, we’ve been to Queenstown several times but have yet to go on the luge! Time to rectify this glaring error.

After getting back from paragliding, we pottered around Queenstown a bit looking for last-minute necessities, then had lunch at Prime, overlooking Lake Wakatipu. Then we (I) had an icecream at Patagonia (Nicola had had one in the morning whilst I was up in the air), bought tickets in town for the gondola and luge, and headed up the hill to the start of the gondola. This takes you up the hill to the lookout, so we looked out over Queenstown before taking another lift (uncovered, this time) to the start of the luge track.

The luge is a simple vehicle: it has a lever at the front, which you push forward to go (under the force of gravity) and pull back on to slow down. You also steer with it. First-timers are obliged to take the easy, blue track for their first run, in order to get the hang of it. The second time you can tackle the harder red run. The assistants ensure you know what you’re doing, and then you’re off! It’s like go-karting but without an engine. When you get to the bottom, you get out and go round again! Once is never enough. Also, the minimum number of rides you can buy is two…but you can buy as many as you like. We did the two rides, and congratulated ourselves on our adventurousness.

 

In the late afternoon, we assembled with our co-trampers for a briefing at Ultimate Hikes about what to bring, what to do, and general preparedness for the Milford Track. We collected rucksacks and linings, and took these back to the hotel. Then we went out for dinner at Bella Cucina, a nice little Italian restaurant where Nicola had gnocchi and lemon sorbet, whereas I had papardelle con frutti de mare and tiramisu. Yes, all mixed together. Now we’re back packing up for the trip and I thought I’d better commit this to blog because by the time I get back it will be a distant memory.

Tomorrow we go dark for five days. See you on the other side.

 

Coronet Peak Tandem

Queenstown calls itself “the adventure capital of New Zealand”, and the options for throwing yourself out of or from high places are many and varied: bungy jumping, skydiving, paragliding, hang-gliding are the main ones. I decided to throw myself off a mountain…but taking the precaution of having a man strapped to me, and a parachute strapped to him.

We met up in town at the designated time, 10:45, and were driven to the top of Coronet Peak, the highest point in the city of Queenstown. We’d originally planned for Nicola to come along as well on photography duty, but it turns out that coming down from the mountain by parachute is quicker than the winding road by bus, so she’d’ve missed my descent and landing anyway. So I abandoned her in Queenstown and went off with three other customers. As we stepped into the bus we were weighed, to make sure we hadn’t been lying on our booking (there’s a maximum weight restriction), and allocated a pilot. We picked up our pilots halfway up the road to Coronet Peak and introduced ourselves. I was with René from Czechia.

We arrived at our jumping-off point, and it’s exactly that: there’s no building, just a patch of gravel with an astroturf runway downhill. The pilots readied themselves and us, strapping us in to our gear, then their gear, then finally attaching themselves to us. It was a cloudy day so we were looking for gaps in the cloud to make our take-off. The first one went and fluffed it a little (she stopped running before she left the ground), so I was strictly enjoined not to do the same thing, and keep running! A gap opened in the cloud, the other pilot shouted “Go!”, and I started running downhill on the strip. Before I’d gone less than ten metres we were off the ground, but I kept running for comic effect.

And that’s it! We’re airborne! René was controlling the wing, and we did a bit of swooping and turning. René was also taking pictures, pointing his GoPro selfie stick in all directions and getting all the angles. After a while he asked if I’d like to take control of the wing, got me holding both the handles, and then I did some turns, pulling down and releasing on his commands to execute 90° turns left and right.

 

Me on the controls

As we approached the landing field René did some big swoops, rollercoaster-ride style, before coming in fast, almost clipping the top of the grass, then pulling up to a stall. “Feet down!” he shouted, and I did so, and was standing on the grass. We’d been airborne for around 15 minutes and, as expected, the bus was still not here. So we unclipped, unharnessed, and René packed away his wing. We looked at the photos and transferred them to my phone, for a fee. After a short while, Julia turned up in the bus and we rode back into Queenstown, again dropping the pilots off halfway down.

All jolly good fun, exciting, and not even a little bit scary! Oo-er! I’ll probably do it again next time we’re in Queenstown.

 

Queenstown 2020

We were up at sparrow fart to get on a plane down to Queenstown at 9:10. Thanks to our trip to Costa Rica earlier this year (was it really this year? It seems like a lifetime ago!), we’ve got plenty of airpoints and dollars, so our silver status entitled us to Koru Lounge entry. This includes breakfast, so we got there early to be able to take our time.

The flight down was a little bumpy, but we landed without fuss and took a cab to our hotel before heading out into town. We’re centrally located so walking is not a problem. We picked up a couple of things we wanted for our expedition in two days’ time on the Milford Track. We’ve got a couple of days in Queenstown before we set out on Christmas Eve.

The obvious spot for lunch in Queenstown is Fergburger. This has become an institution and usually entails a queue down the street and an hour-long wait for your food as they run a non-stop burger production from their kitchen. Nowadays, however, without the thousands of overseas tourists who usually throng the streets of Queenstown, we were able to march smartly up, order our burgers, and wait barely 10 minutes (roughly the time it takes to cook them) before they were ready. Queenstown is still busy, but not quite as manic as is usual at this time of year (and in fact the whole of the summer). We have taken the precaution of making sure we have bookings for dinner for all our nights here.

Look...no queues!

After lunch we took a walk through Queenstown Gardens, along the lake front and then through the forest and gardens, where people were playing frisbee golf on the specially-designed course.

In the evening, we went out to Botswana Butchery on the lake front. This is one of Queenstown’s top dining experiences, complete with waiters with poncy French accents. Fortunately they didn’t have French waiter attitude, but were very polite and efficient. We had cocktails followed by a steak (me) and hāpuku (Nicola). As their speciality is their meat, they have a regular menu, and a “little black book” updated daily with various cuts that they have only available on that day. I went for the Wakanui eye fillet, with green peppercorn sauce. The puddings were also up to scratch, I had chocolate and Nicola had a tarte tatin.

That about wrapped up Day 1. Tomorrow, I jump off a mountain.

Queenstown

What’s the secret to good comedy?

Timing.

Timing is everything. Nicola’s sister, Sacha, and husband Paul, are touring New Zealand in a camper van in April. They’d planned to visit us in Wellington on the weekend of 22/23 April. Unfortunately, Saturday 22nd April is also the date of the New Zealand Sweet Adelines Convention, to be held this year in Dunedin, which Nicola is committed to attend.

Not wanting to miss out on seeing her sister, therefore, we decided to head down to Queenstown at Easter and see them on their tours there. Serendipitously, niece Ishbel was also planning to be in New Zealand visiting other niece Eli, who is here for a year on a working visa. Hope you’re following this? Good. They also planned to be in Queenstown for Easter, so we could all meet up for a couple of days and do whatever there is to do in Queenstown.

We flew down on Maundy Thursday and arranged to meet up. We’d arrived first, so we had a quick lunch at Pier 19 and awaited their arrival. Once they were all ensconced in their camper van site, we met up and had a wander around town. Whilst the weather wasn’t the finest, the rain appeared to be holding off so we went for a walk through the Queenstown Gardens park, then headed back into town. We went to the Pub On Wharf – a Mac’s pub, unsurprisingly located on the wharf – for a pre-dinner drink before going to Jervois Steak House (“JSH”) for dinner.

JSH is a Nourish Group restaurant, and therefore we expected a high standard. Whilst primarily a steak house, it catered for all tastes, and everyone got what they wanted from salads to fish to steak. The waitress had explained in detail what steaks were on offer, from the marbled wagyu to the locally-produced grass-fed wakanui. After hearing her sales pitch,  I went for the wakanui sirloin rather than my usual choice of fillet. And it was great, as was everyone else’s dinners. So thumbs up to JSH from us.

After dinner we headed back to our vans and hotels, as we were up early the next morning to go white water rafting on the Shotover river.

We met up at the Queenstown Rafting shop on Shotover street at 8:00am, and were then driven the short distance out of town to the lower end of the Shotover river, i.e. the point at which we would end up. We were then equipped with wetsuit, surf boots, jacket, waterproof, life jacket and helmets, and boarded our bus to take us to the top of the river. The bus goes along Skippers Road, an ancient and treacherous way up the gorge, unsealed and narrow. Whilst towing a trailer loaded with inflatable boats. Presumably they must have some system of regulating the traffic along the road, as there’s no way to pass if you meet something head-on – one of you is going to have to reverse several miles until you get to a wide space on the road.

This portion of the drive lasted around 45 minutes, and took us to our jumping-off point. We were given another safety briefing, what to do if we exited the boat at any point, and what to do if the boat turned over on us. This is the last point at which you can back out of the tour…once you’re on the water there’s no turning back or saying “I want to get off”.

We were allocated a guide – in our case, Chief, who we’d had the privilege of rowing with when we went down the Kawarau four years ago. He didn’t recognise us. Ishbel and Eli went up the front, Paul and I took the middle, and Nicola and Sacha had the rear of the boat.

Last time when we'd done the Kawarau, Chief had berated us for "not being real kiwis" for not doing the Shotover. The river does have a higher grade - some of the rapids are graded 4/5, and 5 is where you really want to be experienced in doing this kind of stuff. But the conditions were OK for us - in fact, there'd been so little rain recently that the water flow was getting to dangerously slow levels and if it hadn't started raining a couple of days beforehand, they were seriously thinking about cancelling trips. Fortunately, the flow was back up after the rains, but the water was turbid due to the rainfall, instead of its normal crystal clarity.

Chief was clear in his instructions, rehearsing us on commands whilst we were in the calmer areas, and then we were doing it for real. After a couple of hair-raising rapids, we came over one particular fall, and then were caught in an eddy and couldn't escape! Eventually, we managed to get enough horsepower to break free and carry on down.

At the end, we went through the Oxenbridge Tunnel (literally - a 170 metre tunnel through the rock) and then down the final fall, the biggest of them all. Chief had forewarned us, though, and when he shouted "Get down!" we got as down as we possibly could into the boat. The force of the drop is such that the entire boat gets pushed underwater, and you along with it! However, we surfaced quickly and the boat drains itself, and we finished up on the shore.

Going under water!

After helping stack the boats back on the trailer, we went through the dressing process in reverse, rinsing our gear and then heading for a hot shower and a hot drink. The bus ride back into town was only 10 minutes, and we then queued for an hour or so to get a Fergburger.

Queenstown

Guess what? Summer’s arrived. Long, lazy days on the beach, watching cricket whilst drinking beer, all that sort of thing. Of course, this is mostly restricted to the weekends, except for those times when one of New Zealand’s multitudinous public holidays rolls around. A couple of weeks ago, it was Wellington Anniversary day, and we went off to watch The Black Caps hammer Pakistan at The Basin Reserve. This week just past is when New Zealand celebrates the document which underpins the nation, the Treaty of Waitangi, on Waitangi Day.

And what were we doing to celebrate? Well, we’d already flown south to Queenstown to rendezvous with Alison, who was on an extended holiday from the UK. We’d entertained her in Wellington the previous weekend, before putting her on the Interislander to explore the Queen Charlotte Track by herself.

We arrived in Queenstown by lunchtime, and after settling in to our digs at Amity Lodge (scary name much?) we went for an explore in the 30° heat. After a quick lunch at Pier 19, we went to the Minus 5° Ice Bar, ostensibly to cool off, but also to sample one of their many delicious cocktails, all based, unsurprisingly, on flavoured vodka from Absolut.

That's pretty cool

Alison arrived from Christchurch in the early evening, and we all headed back into town for dinner at Roaring Meg’s. We had ravioli and prawn salad to start, followed by salmon and steak. The chef seemed to have some difficulty understanding medium rare, and I decided not to send the second medium-cooked steak back, as I figured if he couldn’t get it right on the first two tries, he was unlikely to do so a third time. I think the waiter knew this as he scooted off and hid as soon as he served me. The salmon, though, I’m told, was excellent. The puddings were pretty good too.

We decided not to avail ourselves of the various night-time debauchery options available in Queenstown, and went up the hill to our room, and bed.

The following morning we rose early-ish, and walked into town to find some breakfast. We looked in at Patagonia but decided that we wanted something more breakfast-y. We looked at their range of gelati and frozen yoghurts, however, and marked their card for later in the day, before taking the recommendation of Alison’s guide book and going to Vudu. A fairly substantial special of the day included toast, spicy beans, eggs and chorizo, while the girls had something a little more ladylike. We then booked ourselves onto the Million Dollar Cruise, which fortunately costs $999,965 less than the price would suggest. We also took a look underwater at the Shotover Jet pier, where there is an underwater observatory. You can pay $1 to release some food into the lake, which keeps the population of brown and rainbow trout forever nearby.

A little before 11 o’clock we boarded the Million Dollar cruise boat, which took us out around the lake, whilst the captain pointed out local points of interest, some history from around the lake, and commentary on the wildlife.

Southern crested grebe

We weren’t hungry by the time the boat got back, so decided to defer lunch in favour of a walk through the around the headland that contains the Botanical Gardens, to an art gallery that the captain of the cruise had pointed out. What he had failed to point out was that it closed by 2pm on Sundays, as we arrived at 2:05. Bah! We walked back through the Botanical Gardens, interrupting various games of Frisbee golf that were being played on the course along the way. By this time we’d worked up a bit of an appetite, so we joined the continuous queue that forms outside Fergburger from about breakfast time onwards. Fergburger have cornered the market of tasty burgers in Queenstown to the point where it’s practically obligatory to try one, thus continuing to fuel the hype. That said, there wouldn’t be any hype if they weren’t serving up a superior class of burger. The Ferg double cheese did the job, alright.

Next on the agenda was the briefing for the activity we would be undertaking over the next three days - walking the Routeburn Track. This is held at the offices of the tour operator, Ultimate Hikes. they gave advice on what we could expect, the weather conditions, and what to take. We duly noted this and went downstairs to their conveniently-located shop to add to our equipment as necessary.

We went out in the evening, even though we weren't particularly hungry, then decided to get an early night before setting out at 6 o'clock the following morning.

Botswana Butchery

After an exhausting afternoon's rafting, we were booked into what appears to be the best restaurant in Queenstown - Botswana Butchery. We hadn't thought far enough ahead to bring smart clothes, so turned up in t-shirts and shorts. But Queenstown's a pretty informal kinda place, and in fact we weren't the only ones so attired - although a few people had put on long trousers and shirts.

Botswana Butchery

As the name suggests, meat is the main order of the day here. We started with duck livers (me) and rabbit risotto (Nicola), then both went for Wakanui eye fillet, with pinot noir & thyme sauce (me) green peppercorn sauce (Nicola). Were they good? They were bloody marvellous! We (I) wanted pudding, but by then we were stuffed (the starters had been quite rich), so I had a coffee and we called it a night there.

Kawarau River Rafting

Back to Queenstown again on Friday - we're wearing a groove in the Gibbston Highway - we first headed to the Skyline gondola for a ride to the top. We were intending to have lunch there before the afternoon's activities, but it was fully booked, so we admired the scenery instead:

Overhead, tandem parachute jumps were being launched - think we'll give that a try next time we're in Queenstown:

After stopping in the café for a tea and coffee, we headed back down into town to find a bite to eat before setting out to find the Queenstown Rafting shop on Shotover Street, to begin our white-water adventure.

The bus drove us out of town to their centre, where we changed into wetsuits and were issued with hard hats and lifejackets. Properly attired, we then took another ½-hour bus ride to our starting point. We were then split into groups, largely based on linguistic ability of the guides - there were a fair few Asian groups travelling with us as well as a French family. Our guide, Chief, gave us the safety briefing and basics of rafting, then in we got and away we went! The Kawarau River is graded 2/3 - most of the rapids are grade 2 with one 3 at the end. One of the first things we did was take a dip in the river - after the bus ride in 26° heat in wetsuits, we wanted to cool down! The river is icy cold, being mainly meltwater from the snowfields above, but you soon get used to it in a wetsuit. The biggest challenge is getting back into the boat. We made out way down through the rapids, which were quite fierce in places, but without the big drops that we'd had when we went on the Barron River in Queensland - so us "old hands" felt quite blasé about it! the final stretch is a 400 metre grade 3, which was pretty cool! We were slightly hindered by one of our boatmates who didn't seem keen on getting his paddle wet, which meant we were a bit unbalanced on each sides' rowing strength.

After the final stretch we got our boats ashore and stacked them on the trailer, and were then bussed back to the centre where we showered and changed, before getting a ride back into town. I was talking to the driver who took us back into town about the Shotover River rafting, which I had deliberately not booked as it's graded 4/5, which can be pretty hairy stuff...but from what she was saying, it sounds like it's not as scary as we thought, and she reckoned that as long as we didn't go in Spring, when the meltwater is at its highest and the river is in full spate, we should be OK...so next time we're in Queenstown we'll give that a go as well.

TSS Earnslaw

The TSS Earnslaw, "The Lady Of The Lake" is a twin-screw steamship that was built 100 years ago and is still running on lake Wakatipu. Previously used to transport freight as well as passengers, it is now used only as a tourist attraction, running between the dock at Queenstown and Walters Peak homestead, a high country sheep farm.

We'd booked our trip and dinner, and arrived at the dockside a little before 6, to board. Whilst steaming along the lake, we took some pictures,

Nicola finishes one beer and reaches for the next.

...including seeing down into the engine room, which is opened up so you can watch men shovelling coal into the furnaces, and the engineers about their engineering. Communication between the bridge and engine room is still via an engine order telegraph which can be seen on the left of the picture:

We arrived at the homestead for dinner, which was followed by a demonstration of sheep shearing by Bob, who told us about the history of the farm whilst shearing a sheep:

Around 9pm our ride returned:

We hopped on board for our trip back to Queenstown, and the drive back to Cromwell.

Wanaka

Boxing Day morning dawned slightly less warm than the previous day. We set off for Wanaka fairly promptly in the morning, and after parking conveniently next to the i-site, we found only two of the town's complement of cafés was open, and both were full. After walking around a bit to confirm this, we returned to the first one we'd found and saw what must have been the mid-morning rush had lessened somewhat, and we were able to sit down inside and enjoy a coffee and an Afghan.

We perused the map obtained from the i-site and set off on a walk towards Waterfall Creek. This followed the lake shore around through Roy's Bay.

We walked round the track to find, as I had surmised, that the waterfalls would actually be found substantially further upstream. 

Waterfall Creek - where's the waterfall?

There was a slipway for boats, and a few people picnicking in the area. After admiring the scenery and trying unsuccessfully to photograph greenfinches: 

There's a greenfinch in here somewhere (actually there's three)

We turned around and retraced our footsteps back to town. on the way, a pair of biplanes flew over in formation:

When we got back to town we headed for The Trout pub for a spot of lunch, before going to Stuart Lansborough's Puzzling World to meet Nicola's uncle Bruce, who lives in nearby Luggate. We'd arranged to meet here, and had a coffee in the café before exploring the puzzles - which consist of optical illusions, holograms, and other things that mess with your head, like the perspective room, the tilted house and the wall of following faces. 

Afterwards Bruce took us up to the War Memorial, from where we were able to see all of Wanaka and various other points of interest including Mount Aspiring, Roy's Mount and part of the Cardrona Pass, which we were to drive through to get back to Queenstown in the evening.

Mount Aspiring

Queenstown

Christmas day dawned hot and bright. We made a leisurely start to the day, then headed into Queenstown for lunch. After finding a convenient parking spot, we wandered around a the town a bit, noting where the TSS Earnslaw is moored (this would be important on Boxing Day) and seeing folk down on the beach dressed as santa:

We then headed for our Christmas lunch at Tatler, where traditional turkey and Christmas pudding was on offer. In the 31º heat we decided against that - fortunately there were more climate-friendly options on the menu.

We took a walk through the Botanical Gardens in Queenstown, where there were all kinds of birds sunbathing:

...before heading back to our accommodation, and escaping the heat. In the evening we sat outside, drinking wine in the evening sunshine.