Today was designated a drive day for the most part, we had about a 4 hour jaunt over to Te Anau which is at the edge of the largest park in New Zealand, basically at the bottom of the south island. We took our sweet time in the morning and didn’t get out of there until right at 10AM, exactly when we had to be checked out of our nice hotel.
Once again the weather was perfect for us, clear blue skies and great temperature, this is really unbelievable. We didn’t waste any time and just drove straight through w/o stopping anywhere other than a few viewpoints off the side of the road. We drove through the mountain range on our way there and it offered great views of Queenstown and other areas.
We got into Te Anau around 1:30 and walked up and down the lake front looking at hotels and finally settled on one that offered a full view of the lake from our room, very nice. We’re going to be staying here 3 nights so we figured it’d be a good one to be picky in selecting.
There was a fairly large (the biggest one in New Zealand) bicycle race coming through town right after we arrived and they were biking right down the lakefront drive which was between our room and the lake. There were groups of people along side the road cheering the bikers as they rode by.
Once the bikes were through and we ate some lunch, we headed off to the other side of the lake for a 3 hr walk along the other side of the lake. It was only a 10 minute drive to the trail head,
which pretty much began at a damn that drew power from the lake waters. This was a very easy walk compared to most of the other ones we’ve done up til this point, pretty much flat the whole time. It was nice and the trail was well kept, more like a path than a trail really. There were plenty of spots where you could go out along the lake on long strips of empty beach, they were really nice but the one problem was sand flies. They bite. The bites hurt. So we didn’t stick around idle too long. On the return walk we came along the base of a small incline and a guy in his 40’s was coming over the ledge towards us, he had his camera out and he took our picture. I thought this was a bit odd and gave him a curious look like “what the hell was that buddy”. He turned out to be a very chatty, he was from the northern part of the south island and was here to see his son race in that bike race that was coming through town today. His wife had passed us j
ogging on the trail a bit earlier and he was just walking along waiting for her to return.
He actually turned around and walked back with Marlo and I the whole way back to the car. Along the way he told us about the area and the various birds and plants we could see around us. He also didn’t hold back in telling us all about himself, he was a big fan of himself obviously, but not to the point he was intolerable. Evidently he owns a car dealership up in Nelson, but what I found to be more impressive is that he used to be the head of sales and marketing for Tui beer!!!! My favorite Kiwi beer!!!! Anyhow, he walked with us back, chatting the whole time, once we got back to the car we thanked him for the company and drove back into town.
We went straight back and to the grocery store to get some supplies for the next few days and then headed back to our hotel to relax for a short bit before heading out to dinner. For dinner we strolled up the street to a bar/restaurant about ¼ mile up the road, also right on the lake. The place was packed with people from the bike race, which made it pretty lively. The food was good, but since we had arranged to be picked up by a bus at 8AM tomorrow to go see Milford Sound tomorrow we didn’t want to waste any time hanging around after dinner and just came back to the hotel to go down for the night.
We were able to watch the sun set over the mountain range and the lake before hitting the sack, since we’re so far south the sun actually doesn’t go down til around 9PM or so.
Once again the weather was perfect for us, clear blue skies and great temperature, this is really unbelievable. We didn’t waste any time and just drove straight through w/o stopping anywhere other than a few viewpoints off the side of the road. We drove through the mountain range on our way there and it offered great views of Queenstown and other areas.
We got into Te Anau around 1:30 and walked up and down the lake front looking at hotels and finally settled on one that offered a full view of the lake from our room, very nice. We’re going to be staying here 3 nights so we figured it’d be a good one to be picky in selecting.
There was a fairly large (the biggest one in New Zealand) bicycle race coming through town right after we arrived and they were biking right down the lakefront drive which was between our room and the lake. There were groups of people along side the road cheering the bikers as they rode by.
Once the bikes were through and we ate some lunch, we headed off to the other side of the lake for a 3 hr walk along the other side of the lake. It was only a 10 minute drive to the trail head,
which pretty much began at a damn that drew power from the lake waters. This was a very easy walk compared to most of the other ones we’ve done up til this point, pretty much flat the whole time. It was nice and the trail was well kept, more like a path than a trail really. There were plenty of spots where you could go out along the lake on long strips of empty beach, they were really nice but the one problem was sand flies. They bite. The bites hurt. So we didn’t stick around idle too long. On the return walk we came along the base of a small incline and a guy in his 40’s was coming over the ledge towards us, he had his camera out and he took our picture. I thought this was a bit odd and gave him a curious look like “what the hell was that buddy”. He turned out to be a very chatty, he was from the northern part of the south island and was here to see his son race in that bike race that was coming through town today. His wife had passed us j
ogging on the trail a bit earlier and he was just walking along waiting for her to return.He actually turned around and walked back with Marlo and I the whole way back to the car. Along the way he told us about the area and the various birds and plants we could see around us. He also didn’t hold back in telling us all about himself, he was a big fan of himself obviously, but not to the point he was intolerable. Evidently he owns a car dealership up in Nelson, but what I found to be more impressive is that he used to be the head of sales and marketing for Tui beer!!!! My favorite Kiwi beer!!!! Anyhow, he walked with us back, chatting the whole time, once we got back to the car we thanked him for the company and drove back into town.
We went straight back and to the grocery store to get some supplies for the next few days and then headed back to our hotel to relax for a short bit before heading out to dinner. For dinner we strolled up the street to a bar/restaurant about ¼ mile up the road, also right on the lake. The place was packed with people from the bike race, which made it pretty lively. The food was good, but since we had arranged to be picked up by a bus at 8AM tomorrow to go see Milford Sound tomorrow we didn’t want to waste any time hanging around after dinner and just came back to the hotel to go down for the night.
We were able to watch the sun set over the mountain range and the lake before hitting the sack, since we’re so far south the sun actually doesn’t go down til around 9PM or so.
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