| Submitted by: R Wicks, United Kingdom |
| Submission Date: 31 December 2006 |
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This curious Disneyesque tourist attraction built round a maze, which they claim will take you an hour to solve, is at odds with the surrounding farmland. Sit in the cafe with a coffee and cake and try to solve the puzzles on the tables. Visit the roman style toilets and take your photograph by the Leaning Tower of Wanaka. Truly weird.
From Wanaka the highway passes many wineries with fields of vines on both sides of the road. The highway then follows the Kawarau Gorge with many interesting stops along the way such as the Goldfields Mining Centre, where you can explore the old gold mine and take a jet boat ride, and Roaring Meg where we saw some intrepid white water body boarders.
Just before Arrowtown the highway passes the Kawarau Suspension Bridge, home of the original A J Hackett bungy jump. This impressive complex features a multi media experience, licenced cafe, shop as well as the original bungy jump site. You can walk onto the historic suspension bridge and watch people throw themselves at the Kawarau river 43m. below. well worth the stop for the laugh.
Arrowtown, another old gold mining town, has the look and feel of a classic tourist trap. The main street has the look of an old western frontier town, spoiled by the parked cars, with most of the shops selling expensive clothes, jewellery and souvenirs. It also served as the location for The Ford of Bruinen in the Lord of The Rings films.
The short run from there to Queenstown takes only a few minutes and we stayed in the Colonial Village Motel on the main highway about 1km from the town centre, and our room had a spectacular view across the lake to the Kelvin Heights and the snow capped Remarkables mountains beyond.
Queenstown is the adventure capital of the world. You can do pretty much anything here that involves putting your life at risk. From bungy jumping off suspension bridges and mountains, to white water sledging, skiing in season, kayaking, hang gliding, sky diving etc. Situated on Lake Wakatipu and surrounded by mountains the views are pretty spectacular wherever you look. Within a few short minutes drive there is the famous Shotover Jetboat ride through the river gorge, highly recommended as Disney will never match this for thrills. Coronet Peak ski base is reached by way of a narrow winding but good quality road, and affords spectacular views across the valleys. However don't attempt this drive if you have a problem with heights. The drops on the side of the road are shear in places with few guard rails.
We took the scenic drive north along the lakeside to Glenorchy, through Closeburn and 12 Mile Delta, both sites used as locations for Lord of The Rings. Glenorchy is a sleepy little town of about 200 people catering for eco-tourists. Jet boat safaris and horse treks out to the Dart river go from here. Glenorchy is known as the gateway to Paradise, which does exist about 20km up the road. It's a paddock practically in the middle of nowhere. All you can do is turn round and come back.
Queenstown nightfife is plentiful, literally dozens of restaurants and bars including the obligatory Irish pub, this one claiming to be the most southerly on the planet. We had a fine dinner of fresh salmon and succulent lamb in The Branches on Beach Street.
The other high spot in Queenstown is the Skyline Gondola, a restaurant and shops complex perched above the centre of town reached by cable car. Take a ride up there, have a drink, eat dinner and throw yourself off the bungy platform. The perfect end to a perfect day.
We had a boat trip out on Milford Sound booked for 3pm on Friday and that's 290km from Queenstown, via Te-Anau where we had 2 nights at the Lakefront Lodge Motel booked. Leaving Queenstown just before 9am we made good time down highway 6, stopping at Kingston, 45km south of Queenstown, to check out the Kingston Flyer, a grand old steam train in the old wild west tradition which hauls tourists on a 14km stretch of track twice a day between October and April.
A rest stop at the Lazybones Cafe at Athol on highway 6 for coffee and muffins while sitting on a comfy sofa by a log fire was great. This little cafe used to be a garage but it's been turned into a fabulous little old world cafe full of home made food, crafts and knitware by the owners, who are only too pleased to chat with travellers passing through.
Cutting across to to Mossburn on the 97 we joined highway 94 for the run into Te-Anau.
We made Te-Anau by midday and dropped off our luggage before setting out for Milford Sound down what must be one of the greatest drives in the world. They say you should allow at least 2 hours for the 120km but we managed it easily in around one and half because we didn't want to miss the boat. But if you intend doing this drive allow at least 4 hours. Round every twist and turn of this road is a fantastic photo opportunity of snow capped mountain vistas, reflective pools and sparkling mountain streams. Although it's not possible to stop in many places because of the narrow road you should have your camera ready to shoot through the windows.
The route climbs gradually to the Homer tunnel. 1.2km long and unlined rough hewn rock, apart from an initial upward slope on entering it slopes down towards the Milford end at a gradient of 1 in 10, has a permanently wet and slippery road surface and is virtually unlit apart from small lights in the roof. Readers intending to do this trip should take care on entering the tunnel on a bright day. Take off sun glasses and turn on headlights before entering the tunnel, and slow down. The initial total blackness is very alarming. The tunnel is also very narrow with a couple of bus passing places along the length.
From there on down to Milford sound you pass through The Chasm, formed by the rushing waters of the Cleddau River, into Milford. If you intend doing this drive make sure you have enough fuel for the return journey, and snow chains are a legal requirement for this road irrespective of season. There is no petrol station here. Milford is just the terminal for the boat trips out onto the sound these days. There is a hotel by the car park, which is a short 10 minute walk from the visitor center/harbour, but no other facilities apart from toilets. All the boats have refreshments on board. We opted for a stop at the underwater observatory which provides a close up view of the marine life below the surface of the fiord and adds an exciting ride back to the harbour aboard a fast sports fishing boat. Well worth the extra few dollars over the regular cruise price. Milford sound has been described as the eighth wonder of the world and to fully appreciate the cruise you really need to be out on the top deck of the boat, where it can sometimes be very windy and cold. It is also one of the wettest places on earth with up to 9 metres of rain a year. But it's best in the rain as there are more waterfalls. Take appropriate clothing.
Te-Anou is a beautiful little town with shops, restaurants, cafes and a gorgeous lakefront situation ideal for the boaties who seemed to flock there over the labour day weekend we were there. It's also known as the walking capital of the world and the famous Milford, Hollyford, Routburn, Greenstone, Caples, Kepler and Dusky tracks all start nearby. You can take floatplane and helicopter flights over the fiords and glaciers from the town jetty, and jetboat rides, kayaking, horse trekking and mountain biking are all available.
On our return from Milford we had dinner at Bayliez. Huge portions of Cajun chicken salad and lamb shanks with cool glasses of the delicious house Montana chardonnay.
We spent an easy second day walking along the lake shore and visiting the local wildlife sanctuary, plus checking our email at the Te-Anau Photo Centre, where you can burn your digital photos to cd if, unlike us, you don't lug a laptop round the world.
Tonight it's porterhouse steak, fresh mushrooms and vegetables and hash browns with a bottle of McGuigans Black Label Cabernet Merlot.
Tomorrow we head for The Catlins and Kaka Point down the Southern Scenic Route. This well signposted route winds it's way out of the mountains and down around the south of the island through lush green rolling farmland and fields of grazing sheep, cattle and deer, plus some of the most amazing coastline in the world with cliffs battered into shape by the wind whipped southern ocean, and ends up at Dunedin on the east coast.
The Southern Scenic Route takes highway 95 out of Te-Anau south towards Manapouri, the town saved from drowning by a nationwide protest against the raising of the levels of lakes Manapouri and Te-Anau for a proposed hydro electric scheme. The resulting West Arm underground power station has no visual impact on the environment and is itself a tourist attraction, being a stop off for boats on the way to Doubtful Sound.
There are so many places and things to look at on this route round the southern tip of the island it would take at least a week to see them all.
Unfortunately we didn't have that much time so we had to be selective and choose only those that are close to the road or at least only a few kilometres off it.
We had a quick look around Manapouri, the setting for the novel Song of The Sound by the English writer Adam Armstrong, before heading off towards Clifden for a quick look at the old suspension bridge over the Waiau river.
Our next stop was Tuatapere, self proclaimed sausage capital of New Zealand. I don't know why, as all we saw was one butchers shop, a bar, motel, an art gallery, some public toilets, a rugby field come camping ground, and a garage.
McCracken's Rest is the next significant stop on the Scenic Route, and is the most south westerly point on the New Zealand road system. A rest area here overlooks the Te Wae Wae bay out to the Solander Islands and you can see the southern end of the Southern Alps and the Hump Ridge.
Monkey Island comes up next, in Maori legend this is the anchor stone of the Takitimu Canoe which was wrecked at the mouth of the Waiau River. Here we took the car onto the beach for some photographs of the island, which is a tiny hump of rock and grass in a small inlet and only accessible at low tide.
For a good coffee break I recommend the Beachhouse Cafe and Bar in Riverton. Take the road out to the Riverton Rocks to get to this popular local eating house, where the menu is better than your average cafe and the portions are huge. The locals eat here, always a good sign.
The South Scenic Route goes through the centre of Invercargill, the southernmost city in New Zealand. We drove through here quite quickly, but noticed some fine and interesting Art Deco buildings on the way, as well as a very large shopping area and sports stadium etc.
Our intention to visit Slope Point the most southerly point of the south island and the Lands End of New Zealand, took us off the main highway onto an ungraded gravel road through Otara and Haldane. Slope Point is only accessible by foot across farm land and unfortunately for us the footpath is closed during lambing season which runs September through October. So the closest we got was to stop on the road at the start of the footpath and photograph the marker, easily visible about half a kilometre away. This is an interesting and exciting drive along gravel roads, an insight into how the New Zealand road system was not too long ago. The road follows the coastline up onto high cliffs overlooking the ocean where the next land mass due south is the Antarctic. Up here the wind can be vicious at times. We got well and truly windswept, often finding it difficult to even open the car door and standing up required finding something solid to hold on to.
Our destination for the night is Kaka Point and the Nugget Point and Kaka point Motel, curiously situated on both sides of the road. We arrived in time to unload the car and grab a coffee before heading out to Roaring Bay in an effort to see Yellow Eyed penguins. We are assured the penguins come ashore every evening before sunset. The road from Kaka Point to Roaring Bay is gravel, narrow and winds around the cliffs towards the Nugget Point lighthouse. We stopped to ask a group of surfers the way. |
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