Dunedin

Dunedin Station

Stained glass in Dunedin Station

Our hosts were off to work today which left us free to explore Dunedin, proud of its Scottish roots and connections.  Scottish street names abound – we almost expected to come across Findon Place – and a statue of Burns has him imperiously overlooking the town centre on the excuse that his great nephew was one of the ‘founding fathers’.  The sun shone brilliantly from a near cloudless sky making for a very good walk around the town centre. There are just enough old buildings (about 1860s to 1920s) to give it a distinctive character.  The railway station is the most splendid.  It’s ornate both externally and internally, with mosaic tiles still in excellent condition and some fine ’railwayana’ stained glass.  Trains are in short supply, being just goods trains and a ‘must experience’ tourist train that we hadn’t time to experience.  The interior houses a good café, exhibitions of the local artists’ society and the platform hosts part of the farmers’ market on Saturdays.

Imperial Buildings, Dunedin

Other buildings reflect the trading and business wealth of Dunedin a century ago.  We followed some of the i-Site’s historic trail and photographed a number of examples in the brilliant sunshine.  We’d been commissioned by Iona to photograph ‘Baldwin Street’, described in the Guinness Book of Records as the World’s steepest street.  Yes, it’s pretty steep (1 in 2.867) and we walked to the top.  It’s now a Dunedin tourist attraction so Aenea has a certificate recording that she’s gone to the top and as we were descending a bus-load of far-eastern tourists were eagerly testing their calves and snapping furiously.

John climbing up Baldwin Street

View over Dunedin from Signal Hill

Macaw in Botanic Gardens Aviary

Dunedin spreads over the hillsides leading down to the bay and there’s no shortage of pretty steep suburban hills.  We took the car up Signal Hill Road to a lookout point some 300 m above the water for a panoramic view over the city (not added to this blog since we haven’t downloaded the panorama software).  To end the afternoon we visited the botanic gardens where we spent most of the time walking around the aviary, not the plants.

In the evening Pat took us to ‘Sandfly Bay’, firstly because it is a nice place and secondly to have the chance of seeing penguins.  The bay was living up to its name with an off-shore gale blowing the sand horizontally in sheets so we abandoned the half-hour walk down and along to the penguin hide to make a scenic trip to the end of the peninsular with the possibility of seeing albatrosses and little blue penguins.   We saw both.  

Sandfly Bay

The strong wind had given some albatrosses the excuse to take off and circle around an area that had a large colony of spotted shags.  In Pilot Bay a crowd had assembled to see the penguins come ashore and we joined them.  In the event, we had a long wait watching the swell until it was pretty dark, and we were starting to chill when the first short line of penguins could be seen arriving on the shore.  They were quite small and headed straight for the tussocky grass where they had overnight nesting spots.  No photos allowed.  The flash would probably spook them.  If it wasn’t for the red torch of a local volunteer guide, we’d have seen very little since it was so dark by then but some 40 tourists like ourselves were peering to and fro from a fenced in area and caught glimpses of the little birds waddling ungainly across the terrain, sometimes over our path.  It was a somewhat surreal experience.  By the time we got back to Dunedin it was after 10 pm but we all agreed it had been a very good evening.

McLean Falls to Dunedin

McLean Falls forest walk

McLean Falls

This was essentially a day in the Catlins, as we weren't expected in Dunedin till late evening. After a cold night we woke to clear blue skies. First on the agenda was a walk to the McLean Falls, just a few km up the road from where we stayed the night. This was a 45 minute forest walk to a rather spectacular waterfall. Although not the most famous of the Catlins waterfalls (that accolade is given to the Purakaunui Falls), we thought it was the most impressive and the walk through the forest was also one of the best.

Woodland walk to Tautuku Estuary

Tautuku Estuary

Our next excursion was the Tautuku Estuary Boardwalk. This short walk started in woodland and continued on a boardwalk across the Tautuku Estuary wetlands. The tide was going out and the muddy pools were full of tiny little crabs. This was closely followed by the short walk to Lake Wilkie. This walk is designed to show a succession of forest development from the small, water-tolerant shrubs that grow at the lake edge to the mature forest.

Lake Wilkie

Both the previous two walks were in the hinterland of Tautuku Bay. Our next walk took us through the coast strip of forest and down to Tautuko Bay itself. This was another glorious sweeping sandy bay with the waves rolling in. Only other people there were a party of hikers we'd seen earlier at the MacLean Falls who were doing a spot of yoga on the sands. Aenea got her feet wet while John took more photographs of waves.

Tautuku Bay

Stopped for our picnic lunch at Papatowai - another beautiful beach. Then we had a hilly stretch of road and visited the Matai and Horseshoe Falls. These were nice but less impressive than the others we saw today. Next stop was the famous Purakauni Falls - these are the ones that appear in the brochures. Very impressive but didn't beat the McLean Falls in our opinion.

Purakaunui Falls

Then our drive took us through Owaka, a tourist centre for the Catlins, and on to the turn off for Kaka Point and Nugget Point. The drive to Nugget Point was over a long stretch of unsealed road but the view from the lighthouse at the end was well worth it. We also saw fur seals basking in the rock pools below the point. Failed to find a nice place for coffee in Kaka Point, so drove on the Baclutha, the last town in the Catlins, where we had some soup to keep us alive till dinner later in Dunedin.

Nugget Point

By now it was after 6pm and time to hit the road for Dunedin. Nothing particularly memorable about the road from Baclutha to Dunedin - fairly flat and pastoral. Headed straight for the Octagon - the centre of Dunedin - and had dinner in a bar/restaurant there. Then drove round to the home of Pat Langhorne, an old friend from the Physics Department in Aberdeen, who had kindly invited us to stay with here and her husband for a couple of nights.

Te Anau to McLean Falls in the Catlins

Today we saw penguins!

Control gates on the Waiau river

Day started grey, cold and windy. Took the Southern Scenic Route which followed the river Waiau on its journey from Lake Manipouri to the sea on the south coast. Countryside was mostly rural plains, interspersed with some hills. Heavy rain for a bit made us glad we weren’t on the Doubtful Sound. Stopped to look at the Clifden Bridge, an old suspension bridge, built in 1899, now sadly in need of some TLC to repair and spruce it up.

Te Waewae Bay from McCracken's Rest

Weather began to improve now and, by the time we reached the south coast, the sun had come out and we were able to appreciate striking views of the windswept south coast from McCracken’s Rest. Passed several stands of trees, growing almost horizontally, due to the persistent prevailing winds. Started noticing signs for the Riverton Heritage Trail and Aenea remembered she’d picked up a leaflet on this a few days ago. Dug out the leaflet and followed the trail to some of its sights.

Cosy Nook

Mantell's Rocks

The trail took us to Monkey Island, a tiny island off a pleasant sandy bay. It used to be a place where boats were unloaded and is thought to derive its (European) name from the monkey winch used to haul boats ashore. Next we visited Cosy Nook, a picturesque bay and hamlet, originally named Cozy Neuk, by a Scotsman of course. Then, over some unsealed roads, to Mantell’s Rocks, some dramatically sculpted clusters of rocks, named after Walter Mantell, the first European to make the Southern traverse from Dunedin overland to the South Coast and as far west as the Waiau river.  Had our picnic lunch at the very windy Colac Bay, a surfing spot, though not today. Next stop was the pretty little town of Riverton. Here we had coffee and carrot cake in the Beachside Café, overlooking Taramea Bay.

We could have lingered longer in Riverton but it was time to head east, to our destination in the Catlins. We drove through Invercargill, which was full of roads with Scottish names and some nice looking Victorian architecture, but not enough to delay us with a stop.  The countryside was flat and rural and then we entered an area of wetlands at the estuary of the Matuara river, where the banks of the river were dotted with little fishing shacks, as this is a centre for whitebait fishing.  Paused at Fortrose for a breath of fresh air at the mouth of the estuary. This is where the Catlins officially begin.

Sheep, glorious sheep

Decided to stay on the main road for the first section, although this meant missing Slope Point, the southern most tip of South Island, since side roads here are almost all unsealed (i.e. gravel surface). Countryside now turned into to rolling green hills, with patches of woodland and some sheep in the fields. Could almost have been parts of Scotland. It was quite a contrast to the windswept coast we'd travelled through earlier in the afternoon. Our first diversion was to Porpoise Bay and Curio Bay.

Waves at Porpoise Bay

Porpoise Bay is a beautiful curved sandy bay in which a pod of Hector's Dolphins are resident. People come to this bay to swim with the dolphins but we contented ourselves with looking at them  through binoculars. Unmistakeably dolphins but too far away to photograph. Paused while John took photographs of waves crashing over the rocks at the end of the bay, then made our way along to Curio Bay where there are fossilised trees. These were more interesting than spectacular. Some were little stumps, others were fossilised logs lying horizontally.

Yellow-eyed penguin at Curio Bay

Curio Bay’s other claim to fame is as home to a small colony of yellow-eyed penguins.  Other than those that are moulting who stay in their burrows, the penguins go out to sea all day, returning in the evening. A notice at the top of the steps down to the bay informed us that the penguins were likely to start coming home around 7.30pm this evening.  We were still ~30km from our accommodation at McLean Falls Holiday Park but the lure of seeing penguins was strong. We found a nice restaurant nearby at the humourously named Niagra Falls, phoned the Holiday Park to say we’d be late checking in, and had a delicious meal. Read subsequently in one of our guide books that this is the ‘best restaurant in the Catlins’.

Drove back to Curio Bay and, yes, we saw penguins. At first we saw three – one scuttling on its way into the foliage at the back of the bay, one snoozing on the rocks and a third standing up, eyeing the small gathering of people. It was not clear who was watching whom. After a short wait, a fourth penguin appeared out of the sea and made its way clumsily over the rocks and beach. It was enchanting to see these rare penguins.

By now it was extremely cold. It was a dark and twisty drive to the Holiday Park where we had booked a motel room – comfortable but rather cold. Temperatures dropped to 4 or 5 degrees that night. We were glad of the electric blanket J

Te Anau

Rainbow over Lake Te Anaua

Rainbow Reach

Woke to sunshine, despite forecast rain. That was to come later. At breakfast time, John photographed a rainbow over Lake Te Anau, which was a nice prelude to our planned walk, starting at Rainbow Reach. This walk was a short section of the Kepler Track, one of several popular walking tracks through the otherwise inaccessible mountains and forests around Te Anau.  To walk the entire Kepler Track, a circular walk over the Kepler mountains, takes 3 or 4 days, camping or staying in one of the huts provided on the track. Our walk was a 6km stretch of the track, starting at Rainbow Reach, a suspension bridge over the river Waiau, following the river for a bit, then winding through beech forest down to the shores of Lake Manipouri. This section of the Waiau river flows from Lake Te Anau into Lake Manipouri and is quite fast flowing. The lower Waiau, on the other hand, which flows out of Lake Manipouri and down to the sea on the south coast (and which we’ll be following tomorrow) is low and slow, since most of the water drains from Lake Manipuri through the power station instead of down the river.

Keplar Track forest walk

View of river Waianu

                  Another enchanting forest walk, with beech leaves raining gently on us whenever there was a gust of wind. At one point, a boardwalk took us to a wetland lookout point, where we looked over a small lake and area of bog, with its own unique ecosystem. The trees were full of bird song – the chimes of the bellbird, which we’ve nicknamed the ‘modem bird’, the croaks, clucks and whistles of the tui, and other chirps that we haven’t yet learned to identify. Aenea got excited when we saw first a NZ robin and then a fantail and then, a few minutes later, we stepped into a glade where a group of fantails were chattering away, flitting to and fro through the trees just close to us.

Wetlands view point

Shallow Bay, Lake Manapouri

We paused on the shores of Lake Manapouri, which was looking brighter today in the sunshine, though we could see that, in the distance, the Doubtful Sound was swathed in cloud and, probably, rain. We retraced our steps back to Rainbow Reach, then headed into Manapouri for a coffee. Not impressed by the Lakeside Café in Manapouri – no carrot cake L By now the forecast rain was beginning to appear so we headed back to Te Anau to catch up on laundry and blog writing. 

Doubtful Sound

[Apologies – this is going to be a rather long blog entry.]

Motoring across Lake Manapouri

Got up early as bus was picking us up at 8.15am to drive us to Manapouri, the start of our Wilderness Cruise on the Doubtful Sound. Weather was dry but overcast and remained so all day, despite forecast of a fine day. (NZ weather seems to change so rapidly that their Met Office has a hard time of it.) Bus picked up people from other hotels and then dropped us off at Pearl Harbour in Manapouri where we met up the rest of our shipmates. Together there were ~20 of us.  

Pomona Island, Lake Manapouri

The Doubtful Sound is one of only two fiords in New Zealand’s Fiordland  that are accessible to tourists. The most famous and easiest reached is the Milford Sound, which can get as many as 3000 tourists on a peak summer day.  Access to the Doubtful Sound is restricted, however, with a maximum of 300 tourists in peak summer and much fewer normally.  This restriction is possible because the Doubtful Sound is not accessible by road. Getting there is a three stage process.  First a boat trip across Lake Manapouri to West Arm, site of the Manapouri Hydro Electric Power Station, then a bus ride over the Wilmot Pass to Deep Cove on the Doubtful Sound, and finally the boat cruise on the Doubtful Sound.  The only other access to the Doubtful Sound is by sea.

Wilmot Pass

The Manapouri Power Station was built in the early 1960s to provide power for a huge aluminium processing plant in the south east of New Zealand. It is located on the far side of Lake Manapouri to utilise the large catchment of Lakes Te Anau and Manapouri (~1500 sq km). Once the location was decided on, there was a ‘gotcha’. The bridges (of which there are many) on the roads into Manapouri were not capable of taking the weight of all the vehicles and equipment that would be needed to build the power station some 20 km away over the lake. The solution – build a road over the Wilmot Pass linking the Doubtful Sound to West Arm and bring all the heavy equipment into the Doubtful Sound by boat. Once the Power Station was built, the road remained and enabled tourist access. Most of the excursions to the Doubtful Sound also include a visit (by bus underground) to the Power Station, which lies deep beneath the ground.

View of Deep Cove from Wilmot Pass

Our guides, Toby & Justin, who doubled as boat skipper & mate, welcomed us and then broke the bad news that, due to the breakdown of their bus the previous day, they were having to borrow a bus from another tour operator and this bus would not be able to visit the Manpouri Power Station.  This was greeted by a groan of disappointment from all the men and a shrug from all the ladies. (John says it is the largest underground power station in the southern hemisphere, generating some 700 MWatts and well worth a visit!)  Then we all hopped aboard the Fiordland Explorer, a very small motor cruiser and buzzed at over 20 knots  across Lake Manapouri to West Arm.

Lake Manapouri itself is very beautiful with lots (~30) of islands. It’s all glacier made, so most of the shoreline is near vertical mountainsides. The trip across the lake took 45 minutes then we disembarked at West Arm. Here we browsed an information display about Lake Manapouri and the Power Station while we waited for our borrowed bus. The bus trip over the Wilmot Pass provided spectacular views of forests, gorges, waterfalls and, ultimately, Deep Cove on the Doubtful Sound.

Doubtful Sound

We boarded Tasman Explorer which, thankfully, was a bit bigger than Fiordland Explorer, and headed out into the Sound. The scenery was majestic. Although overcast, visibility was excellent and we could see the tops of these huge mountains out of which the Sound has been carved. Many of the surrounding peaks were 1500 – 1800 m. Like Lake Manapouri, the mountains drop almost vertically into the water and it is incredible how the trees have managed to cover the cliffs, supporting one another by intertwining their roots in a bed of moss and lichen. Every now and then there is a scar of bare rock, caused by a ‘tree avalanche’, where the tree roots lost their hold and all tumbled into the sea.  The main cause of the tree avalanches is earthquakes, for the area is likely to receive a Richter 7 quake almost every decade, according to the guide.

Looking back into the Doubtful Sound from the entrance

Seal colony

Early on our hopes were raised when Toby thought he saw some penguins but, alas, they disappeared. We motored up the Sound, passing islands and side arms of the Sound. Sat out on the front deck most of the time, catching the wind and the atmosphere. The wind increased but from the north so it wasn’t too cold. We motored right to the mouth of the sound, where it joins the Tasman Sea, and in amongst some islands on which there is a colony of fur seals. The boat was able to go up close to these islands so we all got a good view of the seals. This was lucky as most days, apparently, it is too rough for the boat to go in amongst these islands.  We also went in amongst the ‘shelter isles’, another group of islands near the entrance where a boat could moor.  Almost all of the Sound is too deep to moor a boat.

Looking down Crooked Arm

On our way back down the Sound, we turned into Crooked Arm, one of the side arms of the Sound, and there we saw a pod of Doubtful Sound dolphins. They came close up to the boat and frolicked around us. John took lots of ‘almost got it’ pictures of disappearing dolphins J All too soon it was time to tie up in Deep Cove and make our way back home, over the Wilmot Pass again and back across Lake Manapouri. A fabulous trip.

Queenstown to Te Anau

TSS Earnslaw, Queenstown

Lovely sunny morning but still with a cool southerly wind. Bade farewell to Queenstown and rejoined Highway 6 heading south. The road ran along the Remarkables, a jagged mountain range just outside Queenstown, and afforded more splendid views of mountains and Lake Wakatipu. After Kingston, at the southern tip of the lake, the countryside flattened out, the weather clouded over and became a bit bleak. Stopped for coffee at the Lazybones Cafe in Athol, on recommendation of the Lonely Planet, and were not disappointed.

Ayres Range Southland scenery

Road continued flat and and uninspiring. Left Highway 6 at Five Rivers to head for Te Anau. Takimuto Mountains began to appear to the south of us and, in the distance (which was west) the Fiordland mountains loomed. Countryside began to get a bit more interesting and we stopped for lunch at a little World Heritage site where ancient miniature pines grew in moss, an example of post-glacial landscape that used to be common but is now rare due to "european pastoralisation".

World Heritage post-glacial landscape

Countryside now became greener and pastoral with many fields of sheep, cows and deer. We saw several different kinds of deer. Venison farming seems to be common here and, indeed, venison is frequently on the menu in NZ restaurants.

Arrived in Te Anau in the sunshine in early afternoon. It's a pleasant, small town on the shores of Lake Te Anau, looking across at the wilderness mountains of Fiordland. Went for a walk along the shore, past the small man-made harbour and into a lakeside park where we sat and soaked up the sun for a bit. Wrestled with the internet on our motel room, then headed out for dinner in the town, which has a good choice of restaurants for such a small place.

Extraordinary seven person bicycle for hire in Te Anau

Te Anau lakeside

Queenstown

View from our motel window in Queenstown

View of Queenstown from top of the cable car

View from our walk on Bob's Peak

Sunshine today but accompanied by a strong cold southerly wind, making it a jersey and jacket day. From one of our motel room windows, we could see Bob’s Peak and the top of the cable car in sunshine, so we headed there first. From the top we got fabulous views over Queenstown, Lake Wakapito and the surrounding mountains. Bright blue skies and wispy white clouds made it all very photogenic. From the top of the cable car we went on a short, 30 min, circular walk, pausing to watch people coming down the luge, then up through dense dark pine woods to a view of Ben Lomond, the mountain behind Bob’s Peak, and back to the top of the luge.

Not tea-trays on ice, the luge is go-karts on a concrete downhill track. Much to Aenea’s amazement, John volunteered to have a go and we have a photo to prove it. After that piece of excitement, we watched some people on the bungy swing. This is a variant on the classic bungy jump in which the participant swings horizontally as well as vertically. Insane but fun to watch.

John on chairlift up to the luge

John on the luge

Craft market in Queenstown

We took the cable car back down again (it was much too steep to walk down) and headed for a café that we had spotted the day before advertising free WiFi. Our Queenstown motel didn’t offer free WiFi and when we tried their pay-for service the performance was so bad there wasn’t a hope of being able to upload the blog pictures. So we spent a couple of hours over coffee and, in John’s case, a huge ice-cream, catching up with email and updating the blog. [Keeping the blog updated is now getting quite compulsive. I’ve noticed the entries are getting longer and the pictures more numerous. Am I joining the Facebook/Twitter generation I wonder.]

Bungy jumper at Kawarau Bridge

After our internet fix, we wandered around Queenstown and did some souvenir shopping. It was a glorious, sunny afternoon, though still cool, and we decided to drive out to Kawarau Bridge, where bungy jumping was first invented. It’s a picturesque old bridge, over the spectacular Kawarau Gorge, and has been restored using profits from the bungy jumping business. We watched several people take their first ever bungy jump which was very entertaining. Hats off to people for having the courage (insanity?) to do this. I think Hamish did this bungy jump when he was here. Not sure if I’d have wanted to watch that.

Arrowtown

We drove back to Queenstown through Arrowtown, another former gold-mining township that has retained its old buildings and character. Then it was dinner in a pub on the wharf, watching more rugby on the TV.