Snow and ice
Dawnbreaker
Lars Alfredson
Fri 11 Jul 2014 10:05
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Pos 43:56.59S 171:39.91E Tinwald Bluff Riverton Te Anau Shotover (Queenstown) Wanaka (2) Lake Tekapo Tinwald Above is the list of places we have been to in 8 days. Alot of the time we have had no connection to WiFi or the Internet which makes Lars crazy. The connection are not that good until we get into the larger cities and then sometimes it's storms or other things that get in the way so, hope you don't get bored this time around. I will try and make as interesting as possible. We went to Bluff just to see a Paua House we had heard about and were told by the Caretaker of the campgrounds that the House had been moved to Canterbury in Christchurch 15 years before. I wish someone had told us before, we wouldn't of gone so far. We later realised that the Museum it was in was just around the corner of the gardens we visited in Christchurch. Oh well it's going to be a journey back just to see the Paua House. We went through Invercargill to go shopping for food and found ourselves in America USA again. The roads are very wide and the shops all look like they've just come out of an American Movie. It was even hard to find any booze. We went up and down the street and it wasn't until we were just about to give up that we found a Liquorland, no kidding. It was hiden, near enough just outside the town. We stayed in Riverton for the night and had a beautiful view of the mountains around us. We enjoyed our stay there, they were very friendly and helpful. The next morning we ended up going the wrong way and it wasn't until I saw a letterbox from the day before that we realised it and had to turn around. We needed the 99 to Orepuki to see some wind swept trees. We never did find them. In Te Anau we actually went to the cinema to watch a film about the Fiordland and then after the new X-Men film. It was late when the film finished, about 21.30pm and everywhere was closed. We found 1 Cafe Redcliff open and they would onlly cook Pub grub. We ended up eating Wedges and Springrolls, what a dinner. We got sstuck in Te Anau the next morning. Snow! Snow! lots of lovely new snow. They just have no idea how to drive in snow. All the roads out of the town were closed due to road accidents, from black ice and no grit on the roads. Here they use brushes to clear the snow. We had to wait until after 13.00pm to hear if the roads had been opened, we were lucky, otherwise we would have had to stay the whole day.   New WET snow but it's actually snowed in July. Everything covered in snow, it's great. We didn't get very far because of the delays but we did make it to Queenstown and a little place called Shotover in Arthur's Point. The mountains are all around us and it's beautiful with the snow everywhere. It was only 0.5C in the sun as we left the campground the next day. Lars just loves all the dirt tracks and winding roads in NZ. We're in mountain country now and there's lots of new snow and ice around. When we made a stop to look at all the mountains around us, we had a hard time getting going. We only have chains for the tires, which are only used if needed.   This is a gentle winding road, we've been on worse. The range of mountains of NZ  Lots and lots of new snow. Beautiful. Wanaka was one of my favorite spot. Before we checked-in at the Camp site we stopped at The National Transport & Toy Museum. It was packed firstly with toys from the 50's to now and cars, well, cars were everywhere. Outside there were cars from nearly every country in the World. They were building a new complex to put the rest of the cars in. It took us nearly all day to get around and Rosie was alot of help. The next day Lars went for a very, very long walk. 6 hours later he got back. If he'd stayed out for very much longer I would of checked with Reception and see if we should send out a Patrol for him.  The Transport and Toy Museum - Andy Pandy.   cars, cars, and more cars ................... lovely old cars, restored to there original glory Lindis Valley Pass is just hills, mountains, rivers and a few trees but mostly bushes and scrubland. In amongst all that is Mt Cook.  Mt Cook the highest mountain in NZ Twizel and Lake Tekopo is a very quiet village with flatlands, hills that are brown everywhere and in the background snowy mountains. The temperature has gone up to 12C. The Lake is part of the Hydro Power system that is all along that area. It give 1/5 of the electrical power of NZ. Our Camp site gives us beautiful scenary with snow covered mountains out our back windows. The Lake is turquoise but the water is freezing, I should know, I dipped my feet and came out with Frostbite. The Camp site is very popular as all the cabins are full and by the end of the day most of the power sites were full with just about every type of caravan and camper van available. It's huge and it also has Hot Springs but when Lars checked it out it was crowded with hundreds of people, nothing for me. At Tinwald where we stayed, the park is lovely with a huge amount of different ducks and geece. For a change they seem more content to be in their lake than coming around for bread. We decided to go out for a Roast dinner at "The Stables". We had heard it was the place to go. We had Roast beef which was lovely, it just melted in your mouth but we didn't get any yorkshire pudding and we had Kumaro instead, sweet potatoe. The roast potatoes were frozen so it wasn't what I would call Sunday Roast. Only 2 stars from me.   Our starter, galic bread???? A ring Lars gave me?? Our Sunday Roast.  A eucalyptus tree in the Park. We are back in Christchurch again. This time, just to go to the Museum and see the Paua House that had been moved long ago. We parked in the same place as before and this time we found what we were looking for. The couple in Bluff had over many years, had over 1 million visitors to their home. They opened their home in 1963 when the husband put all his Paua shells all around their front room. They loved having visitors and after they died their Grandson donated their home to the Museum in Christchurch so people were still able to see it.   The Front room as you come in the door. A picture of the couple on your right   Other parts of their collection. I just had to HUG a Redwood in the park.  A White-faced Heron Enough for today, you'll get the rest tomorrow. Hope you enjoy our little trip so far. Love Caroline and Lars x |