Laura and Nati headed off biking – and I took the opportunity to hike up Roys Peak. A hill overlooking lake Wanaka. I will definitely be doing this one again on a nice day.. from the top, had it not been cloudy, you could see Mt. Aspiring.

Then unfortunately it was time to press on – travelling northwards to the glaciers. The West Coast is a rugged beautiful place. Human population ~ 50,000 , Sandfly population ~ 20Billion.

After leaving Gunns camp Laura and I did the first couple of hours work of the Routeburn. It is one of the great walks – but we were up early enough and so didn’t see anyone else (until we started down again). Snow down to 600m (and this is summer!)

We picked up Nati – Laura’s travelling friend (another German) – in Queenstown..

…and headed on to Wanaka. There we went to Cinema Paradiso (lease runs out in a year :( ) and saw Tara Road. A Maeve Binchy film. The last time I was there with John Loane and Maeve we saw intermission. Two visits.. two Irish films. Odd to say the least.

Mind you, I had to laugh when they drove effortlessly through the city centre of Dublin at about 3pm.. that’s certainly not how I remember it… and I quote from today’s Irish Times..

The National Roads Authority (NRA) has acknowledged that a section of the M50 ring road in Dublin will have to close completely for about four nights, most likely before Christmas, as work begins on upgrading overhead bridges into “free-flow” interchanges.

The work at the N4 junction will close the motorway beneath the junction’s twin bridges.

It is a move that is likely to cause frustration for late evening commuters and late-night shoppers.

and a letter….

Madam, – Hard to believe that the toll on the M50 is to increase yet again. It occurred to me that it is time for hard-pressed motorists to protest. One suggestion of a suitable method would be for motorists to converge on the M50 in their thousands and block it for hours. But then I realised that this already happens every day. Any more bright ideas? – Yours etc, –

—-

A friend back in my Openet days in Dublin – Peter – had a great suggestion for a toll protest. Everyone arrive to the toll with 100Euro notes. And demand to pay in cash… they’d soon run out of change and have to open the barriers. Seems like a damn good idea to me.

Today Milford received over 12cm of rain in 8 hours. There are far worse places to be in the world when it is raining that hard. Y’see… Milfords valleys have been carved out of the hard granite by glaciers.

The rock that is left is well ‘ard. And not a lot grows in it or on it. So when it rains there’s not very much to actually soak the rain up – with the result that pretty much every surface turns into a waterfall. It was simply amazing. I’ve been to Milford twice – and it was far more spectacular in the downpour. Mind you, heading out in the boat in Force 10 winds was, perhaps, a little more excitement than I was reckoning on.

Stayed that night in a place called Gunns Camp which is midway between Te Anau and Milford. I’d definitely recommend it as a place to stay. The camp was created back when they were creating the Homer Tunnel. It has no electricity after 10pm, and none in the huts you stay in..

.. what it does have – is a fire to heat the hot water for the showers.. and each hut has it’s own stove for central heating. The whole place has been gifted to a charitable trust – to be kept running for as long as it can. So much of NZ has been packaged up and sold off to richer foreigners – and it’s a real shame.

It also has a really great museum with all sorts of local clippings from old newspapers. And a lamb castrating device – just in case anyone wants to see what it looks like.

This is actually true. And I have a picture to prove it with.

Sandflies are such lovely friendly creatures.. I’m sure their bites are just playful ones. The important thing is not to scratch when you get bitten. Also, and I dunno if this is truly true – but it certainly seems that the longer you are here the less they annoy you. Which is why it’s always good to travel with tourists.. they get munched :)

So today Laura and I had a trip on Doubtful Sound. It’s a beautiful place, and a lot less crowded than Milford. The weather was overcast and a little rainy. Not a particularly uncommon occurrence for a place that gets 6m or so of rain a year.

Back in 19somethingOrOther they wanted to build a power station on the lake. This meant they would have to raise the level of the lake by 30!m. There was political pressure brought – and they conceded to only a raise of 6m. More pressure came on – and it (very fortunately) became an election issue. The arrogant ;) government lost – and the hydro scheme was only permitted to go ahead if it would operate within the natural limits of the lake.

yay.

And it’s a pretty damn cool power plant – buried deep in the heart of a mountain. The water falls 170m or so down a hole they drilled in the mountain, powers the turbines, and then out a 10km long hole out to the sea.

Will be back that way again – I’d like to do the Dusky Walk at somepoint. 6-10 days (depending on weather) of hiking through mud. Sounds great eh?

This guy was pretty damn clever. There was some law which (they changed quickly) which disallowed building a structure which was built on the land. However, this guy built this structure on top of piles he drove into the lake bed. Quite Legal. DOC took him to court, lost, and has to leave the place here. Personally I think it’s quite nicely done – a nice quirky addition to the lake. He is not allowed to use it for accommodation, nor sell it – nor anything other than the stated purpose of crayfishing.

Incidentally – crayfish caught here are put on ice and wake up 12 hours later in Japan. Good for global warming.

In the middle of the left hand picture is a small white speck. It is in fact a Fiordland crested penguin which are now an endangered species.

Sometimes.. it’s things like this that make me feel like I need to get myself a digital SLR with a funky zoom.

So my friend Laura arrived in on the Sunday evening. Had a very nice (even if I do say so myself) dinner with Graham & Myra, Glynn & Jayne (who are now in Europe) and Mark and I. A good dinner chased down by a bottle of wine & whiskey aperitif – and Laura was quickly on her way to getting over jet lag!

Monday morning, locked the door and left the place under the constant protection of our Security Ducks. As other ppl in the house have been feeding the things they’ve taken to lurking outside hoping for a feed. I continually disappoint them in this – but it never stops them.

Anyway..started the long (9 hour) drive down to Te Anau. It really is a stunning drive. We didn’t have fantastic weather and so weren’t able to see Mt. Cook on the way past Lake Tekapo.

Arriving into the lake front backpackers down there at 9pm ish. Real shame the hot spa was closed – would have been most welcome.

I think the ducks must have got lonely without me – as there were more down in Te Anau..