Fiordland - Te Anau, South Island, New Zealand
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Wed 8 Apr 2009 20:21
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45:25.273S 167:42.975E
Our scenery sighting extravaganza continued on
March 14 when we left Greymouth and traveled south past the Fox and Franz-Joseph
glaciers, through the Southern Alps Haast Pass and into the southwest region of
the South Island, which is called Fiordland. We had been warned that the
South Island's west coast and Fiordland weather was usually nothing
less than 'appalling', but we defied all weather odds and had a string of
beautiful days that carried us all the way through our one day drive
to, and three day stay in, Fiordland. This, after a successful Friday
the 13th helicopter ride. Makes you wonder when our luck might run out,
huh?
The drive from Greymouth on the west coast to Te
Anau in Fiordland was the longest and most beautiful of our entire
land tour. In one ten-hour stretch we saw massive mountains, glaciers
and lush forests turn into turquoise lakes and arid foothills once we passed
through the Haast Pass. The South Island is like a mini version of
the United States in terms of topography - only squished in a big way from side
to side since it only takes a few hours instead of many days to drive from the
beaches on the east coast through the farm-filled plains to the mountains and
wild west coast. The fast paced scenery changes make it hard to get bored
while riding around since the view completely changes about once every half
hour. The weather usually changes just as often, but as mentioned above,
we seemed to be traveling around inside a sunshine bubble. Below
are a few photos from our Greymouth-to-Te Anau sunshine bubble
drive:
Picture 1 - One of the many incredibly blue
mirror lakes we drove by after we left the big mountains in the west
behind.
Picture 2 - Our view from the top before we
descended down into the valley where the town of Queenstown
resides.
Picture 3 - Our final destination after the long
drive - the Lakeside Motel in Te Anau.
The next day, March 15, was a designated rest day,
although Don might not agree with that designation given that I made him go on
what he likes to call a forced march along Lake Te Anau for two or
three hours. He lived through the ordeal though and was refreshed and
ready for the two hour drive the next day to one of Fiordland's highlights,
Milford Sound. New Zealand is one of the few places on earth where
towering mountains plunge directly into the sea, creating deep fiords.
Given that, it's a mystery why Milford Sound is called a sound and not a fiord,
but then again we're still wondering why the South Island town of Twizel is
pronounced Twyzil and not Twizel like it's spelled. At any rate, we left
early for Milford Sound and were again treated to amazing scenes along the
way:
Picture 4 - Early morning mist lifting from the
valley floor as the morning sun lights the top half of the mountains. Note
the hordes of traffic on the road.
Picture 5 - More of those hanging clouds we loved
so much. Again with the hordes of traffic.
Once we got to Milford Sound, we boarded a small
tour boat which motored us through the sound (fiord) out to the Tasman Sea and
back. These are Don's best three photos taken during our boat
trip:
Picture 6 - Leaving the dock.
Picture 7 - Fiordland gets more than seven meters
of rain per year (more than 21 feet or 252 inches) and is known for the
phenomenal waterfalls that crop up everywhere when the rain falls. We were
still in our sunshine bubble at the time we were there, so didn't get the full
fiord/waterfall experience, but this was one of what they called the 'permanent'
falls. The picture shows only about half the height of the falls - the
rest is behind the finger of green trees at the bottom. It's just about
impossible to get a good shot of an entire waterfall in the fiord because the
fiord walls are so incredibly high.
Picture 8 - Looking into majestic Milford Sound
from the Tasman Sea.
The following day, Mom and Dad went on a tour of
Doubtful Sound, which sounded like it was similar to Milford Sound, but on an
even larger, grander scale. Don and I went in the opposite direction
back to Queenstown, which we had passed through two days before on the way to Te
Anau from Greymouth. There were two reasons we forfeited the trip to
Doubtful Sound and backtracked two hours to Queenstown instead. First, we had
promised Sue (of the Sue and John from Storyteller variety) that we would
contact friends they had met while cruising the Mediterranean, who now live
outside of Queenstown. 'You must meet John and Amanda!', Sue
insisted. 'They are such good fun. Plus, they were the professional
skipper and crew on an American couple's large motor yacht for several years so
they are used to Americans.' The second reason we felt the need to go back
to Queenstown was the wineries. The Queenstown/Cromwell/Arrowtown area is
as brimming with pinot noir wineries as the Blenheim area was with sauvignon
blanc. As you might have noticed, we like to keep a good balance of
scenery and wine in our land tours. The same could probably be said about
our sea tours.
We arrived in Queenstown and after a quick phone
call to Amanda, we headed to her and her husband John's house/upscale lodge in
the making/small sheep farm. In typical Kiwi fashion, John and Amanda
invited us to their home for lunch and then proceeded to take time away from
work (Amanda) and work on the grounds of the sheep farm/upscale lodge in the
making (John) to whip us up a lavish meal complete with New Zealand sauvignon
blanc. Where else would you get this kind of treatment from complete
strangers? New Zealander hospitality is really
remarkable. The four of us experienced another episode of
incredible Kiwi hospitality later on in our land tour travels. More about
that in the upcoming Twizel/Twyzel entry.
We had an excellent two hours with John and Amanda
listening to stories about their time in the Med with Storyteller and
others. They also filled us in on the plans for their upscale lodge, which
is due to open in 2010. In the meantime, John works as a tour
guide for the Queenstown area, specializing in the wineries. Amanda works
for the New Zealand Qualmark organization, which is responsible for applying
quality ratings to lodgings throughout the country (we were happy with the
Qualmark 4 star motels we stayed in). Next year, John plans to captain one
of the large tour boats in Doubtful Sound. After that, their lodge should
be open. A reason to come back to New Zealand for sure.
Before we left, John introduced us to their sheep
(they all have names and come when they are called). We fed them by hand
(they were very polite and didn't chomp our fingers) and when John told us
to throw the rest of the food to the sheep, the pellet chunks I threw ended up
smack in the middle of the backs of several sheep. I'm sure the sheep
were exceedingly annoyed. Especially when I tried to swat the food off
their backs onto the ground and I couldn't get the pellet chunks to let go
of their wool. I never knew sheep wool was so sticky when still
attached to the sheep. After our sticky sheep encounter, we left with
winery recommendations from John in hand and made our way from Queenstown
to Bannockburn.
Our travels took us through a narrow river
gorge and the first winery we visited was perched on a very slim level spot
within the gorge. As soon as we turned off the main road we knew something
was up because the Chard Farm Winery welcome sign mentioned something about car
parachutes being optional. We drove a little further on the gravel
driveway and saw what was ahead of us. The drive hugged the side of a
cliff, was wide enough for one car and had no fence, guardrail or anything
remotely resembling a safety device to keep a car from rolling down the side
into the gorge below. No wonder car parachutes were mentioned as
optional. On the way up the longer-than-comfortable drive, we met two cars
going in the opposite direction. We stopped and Don backed us up to a
portion of the drive that was slightly wider than the rest. Our
entertainment was watching the faces of the drivers while they passed
us on the cliff-down side while we sat thankfully on
the cliff-up side. We then proceeded to sample at least six
wines, which made the precarious trip down the gravel drive seem not so
precarious. We even felt comfortable enough to stop along the way to take
a few photos:
Picture 9 - I stood on the cliff edge (which was
the road edge) to take this picture. In the distance to the left are the
winery's vines, with the normal part of the drive running through
them. To the right and directly below me, is the river.
Picture 10 - Looking in the opposite direction was
the river with a bridge crossing it. Not just any bridge. This
one is famous for being the location of the birth of bungee jumping in New
Zealand. We didn't see anyone actually jump, but we did see a crowd of
would be jumpers huddled on the platform on the side in the middle of the
bridge. Needless to say, we didn't jump. Although we did hear
that guys that jump naked and girls that jump topless sometimes get to jump for
free. We still didn't jump.
We visited a few more wineries in the name of
research (we have to stock up the boat before sailing off to Tonga and what
better way to determine what wine to buy and what not to?) and then drove back
to Te Anau where we reunited with a tired, but happily scenery-soaked set of
parents.
That's the end of our stay in Fiordland.
More on our brush with fame in Invercargill and meeting a hobbit in the Catlins
later.
Anne
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