March 30, 2010
The Sog Blog:
Rain, rain and more rain but as Duncan says ‘well Dad it is a rainforest’. It poured all night long and at 1:30 I noticed that one of the windows in the cap was open as it was pooling on my side of the bed! We pulled the camper apart this morning and spread everything out in the cooking building to dry – fortunately there was a gas fireplace there which helped things along. We had a slow morning, answered a few emails, had a big breakfast, did some planning and hoped for the rain to stop – no luck. Finally around 2:00 we decided to go for it and headed into the Franz Josef glacier. It is about an hour long walk to the glacier face down the glacial moraine in the valley. The nice braided stream that we saw running down the valley yesterday had turned into a brown churning roaring river that cut the path in several places. The walls of the valley were running with waterfalls, a couple of them quite spectacular. Several river fords and lots of rain left us soaked and squishing before we even reached the face.
The glacier is wonderful however quite small, it has waxed and waned over the years and although it has grown over the last 4 or 5, it is in recession again. The face of the glacier is perhaps 400 meters across and 150 meter high with a gaping tunnel in the middle where the glacial melt water rushes out. Unfortunately the front of the glacier is inaccessible; you can only get within a couple hundred meters of it supposedly due to danger of rock fall. The only way onto the ice is to hire one of the guiding companies and join a group to the tune of about $400.00 for us for a three hour tour. I suspect the danger is not due to falling rock and ice but to loss of employment. Had there not been two groups with guides just coming off the ice we would have snuck up to the face – rats! We hope for better weather tomorrow further up the coast as we head to the Pancake Rocks.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
West Coast Bound
March 29, 2010
Well we woke up seeing our breath this morning and everyone was up, breakfasted and ready to go except Connor. We woke him and he was at his grumpiest so we decided the only thing to do was throw him off a bridge – and that’s just what we did! We headed north out of Queenstown to the Kawarau River gorge. Where the highway crosses the gorge there is a beautiful hundred year old stone and wood suspension bridge which was the original track across the gorge. This is where AJ Hackett started commercial Bungy jumping and this is the bridge we threw Connor off (actually to be perfectly honest he threw himself off). It is a spectacular 43 meter drop into the gorge, you leap off a little platform on the side of the bridge and they fish you out on a rubber raft as you dangle over the rapids below. Connor jumped with no hesitation and he didn’t soil anything – we have the pictures to prove it. With that out of the way we headed north northwest through the Southern Alps to the west coast – Westland National park. This park protects the temperate rainforest as it meets the sea and is home to some of the most active advancing glaciers on the planet. The Fox and Franz Josef glacier move up to 4 meters a day and come down into the rainforest to 300 meters above sea level where they melt at the face and send cascades of turquoise fresh water via braided streams into the Tasman sea.
This trip while less than 300 km long took us over eight hours to cover much to the annoyance of John Cleese the voice on our GPS. It is time for a short treatise on New Zealand highways. First it would be difficult to differentiate one of their highways from our country roads. They are blacktopped however pavement must be in short supply as the lanes are so narrow our van has a foot of clearance on either side. All highways are marked for 100 km however only Mario Andretti in a Ferrari could manage this (although some of the local farmers in trucks give it a good try). For every 5 km of horizontal distance you have gone up or down at least a km and only travelled 3 km as the crow flies. Road signs are few and far between and often unusual like “beware of debris on the road after storm” or “sheep crossing” or dire warnings about falling asleep at the wheel – DrIvE. Bridges are a challenge as they only make them one lane wide and there are lots of them. I have finally figured the strategy for them is to approach them at high speed and don’t flinch, this gives you right of way. This combined with the need to stop frequently and gawk at the spectacular scenery means you don’t get anywhere fast. Our route took us up the mountains (20 km of hairpin turns which made the passengers quesy), along Lake Wanaka’s shores, through the Haast Pass of the Southern Alps and along the Haast River to the sea. While there was lots to see one particular stop at Bruce Bay was memorable. Here there is a stretch of the highway that follows the beach/coast for about a kilometer where the signage warns to watch for debris washed over the road after storms – and there are plenty of debris. Thousands of travellers have stopped here to write their names or poems on the smooth white rounded marble cobbles and build a structure or cairn commemorating there visit along the side of the road. Of course we stopped and build one of the highest, snapped a few photos and pushed on.
We didn’t arrive in Franz Josef until almost 6:00 at night and I was fried from driving. We camped at the foot of the mountains in the middle of the rainforest where as expected it was raining. We are hoping of a break in the weather tomorrow to hike into the face of the glacier – we will see if Mother Nature cooperates.
Well we woke up seeing our breath this morning and everyone was up, breakfasted and ready to go except Connor. We woke him and he was at his grumpiest so we decided the only thing to do was throw him off a bridge – and that’s just what we did! We headed north out of Queenstown to the Kawarau River gorge. Where the highway crosses the gorge there is a beautiful hundred year old stone and wood suspension bridge which was the original track across the gorge. This is where AJ Hackett started commercial Bungy jumping and this is the bridge we threw Connor off (actually to be perfectly honest he threw himself off). It is a spectacular 43 meter drop into the gorge, you leap off a little platform on the side of the bridge and they fish you out on a rubber raft as you dangle over the rapids below. Connor jumped with no hesitation and he didn’t soil anything – we have the pictures to prove it. With that out of the way we headed north northwest through the Southern Alps to the west coast – Westland National park. This park protects the temperate rainforest as it meets the sea and is home to some of the most active advancing glaciers on the planet. The Fox and Franz Josef glacier move up to 4 meters a day and come down into the rainforest to 300 meters above sea level where they melt at the face and send cascades of turquoise fresh water via braided streams into the Tasman sea.
This trip while less than 300 km long took us over eight hours to cover much to the annoyance of John Cleese the voice on our GPS. It is time for a short treatise on New Zealand highways. First it would be difficult to differentiate one of their highways from our country roads. They are blacktopped however pavement must be in short supply as the lanes are so narrow our van has a foot of clearance on either side. All highways are marked for 100 km however only Mario Andretti in a Ferrari could manage this (although some of the local farmers in trucks give it a good try). For every 5 km of horizontal distance you have gone up or down at least a km and only travelled 3 km as the crow flies. Road signs are few and far between and often unusual like “beware of debris on the road after storm” or “sheep crossing” or dire warnings about falling asleep at the wheel – DrIvE. Bridges are a challenge as they only make them one lane wide and there are lots of them. I have finally figured the strategy for them is to approach them at high speed and don’t flinch, this gives you right of way. This combined with the need to stop frequently and gawk at the spectacular scenery means you don’t get anywhere fast. Our route took us up the mountains (20 km of hairpin turns which made the passengers quesy), along Lake Wanaka’s shores, through the Haast Pass of the Southern Alps and along the Haast River to the sea. While there was lots to see one particular stop at Bruce Bay was memorable. Here there is a stretch of the highway that follows the beach/coast for about a kilometer where the signage warns to watch for debris washed over the road after storms – and there are plenty of debris. Thousands of travellers have stopped here to write their names or poems on the smooth white rounded marble cobbles and build a structure or cairn commemorating there visit along the side of the road. Of course we stopped and build one of the highest, snapped a few photos and pushed on.
We didn’t arrive in Franz Josef until almost 6:00 at night and I was fried from driving. We camped at the foot of the mountains in the middle of the rainforest where as expected it was raining. We are hoping of a break in the weather tomorrow to hike into the face of the glacier – we will see if Mother Nature cooperates.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Milford Sound - Stunning!
March 28, 2010
Well the weather gods favoured us today – it was frosty and fair here, clear blue skies, puffy clouds rising up out of the mountain valleys and about 8 degrees (we were told to wear our beanies). This is the first day in a week that they have been able to fly into Milford Sound. The Fiordland area which is a coastal temperate rainforest gets rain over 200 days per year totalling over 10 meters of rainfall! It is one of the wettest areas in the world and the Tasman Sea that the fiords feed into ise considered the roughest in the world after Cape Horn with waves reaching 11 meters high. Fiordland National Park is the largest of New Zealand’s parks (about half the country seems to be parkland) and is a World Heritage Area. Well here is where language is going to fail me because there simply are not the words to describe the beauty and majesty of this area. If the number of pictures taken is any measure, Mary Rose snapped 147 today! We did a fly/cruise/fly expedition. You can drive, fly, walk or boat into Milford Sound however the drive is over 4 hours and not recommended for the faint of heart, boating is very rough around the coast so really the most efficient way to go is single engine aircraft (like our Cessna) or helicopter. We had a plane and pilot Blair for the day to ourselves.
The Flight into the sound (which is really a fiord as it is a drowned glacial valley NOT river valley) takes about 40 minutes and is both breathtaking and at times heart stopping. We quickly climbed to about 7000 feet which placed us above most peaks but still below the bigger ones and gave us an eagle eye view of the area. We flew northwest over four different ranges: The Remarkables (outside our campsite), the Richardson Mountains, the Humboldt Mountains and finally the Darran Mountains to reach the Tasman Sea. The mountains change from more gentle rounded schistose mountains, glacial worn with scree slopes inland to the jagged, rugged and higher granitic gneiss mountains of the coast. We saw braided rivers, spires, crags, cirques and glaciers and for those Tolkien fans with our hearts in our throats we flew over Isengard and through the pass where Gandalf makes his escape from the tower on the eagle’s back – WOW! We landed at the head of Milford Sound which involves coming out of the mountains over the sea, turning around, dropping several thousand feet into the fiord and landing on a short airstrip between steep mountains right at the base of Lady Evelyn falls – WOW!
Here while it was still cold the sun was out and we boarded our cruise ship the ‘Sinbad’ for a tour of the fiord. The ship was less than half full and the people really eager to see us as they hadn’t been able to tour for almost a week. The road into Milford Sound has been closed due to rock fall and the weather hasn’t allowed flights in. Our cruise lasted two hours and went up one side of the fiord and back along the other. Describing this trip could take pages but I’ll try to do it in a paragraph. The Sound which is a deep U shaped drowned glacial valley from about 14,000 years ago is filled with sea water but topped with a layer of tannin rich fresh water up to 10 meters deep. The walls of the gorge are covered with temperate rainforest – beeches, ferns, etc. which cling to slopes that are almost vertical. There is virtually no soil so the plants form a tangled root mat and less than 5% of the plants are anchored to the face so plant avalanches are common. If you can see the rock there was an avalanche in the recent past. The freshwater pours down the sides of the fiord from hanging valleys. As the glaciers retreated and melted, the rivers that once flowed on the top of the ice were left perched high up the valley wall and are now spectacular waterfalls hundreds of meters high. All the rain over the past week meant that every river was full to bursting and the fiord was showered with falling water, spray and rainbows. On several occasions our captain, who had a good sense of humour and later let the boys steer the ship hugged the cliff edge and gave all of us outside a good shower under the waterfalls. The sound is host to all sorts of life including black coral, crested penguins and marine mammals including seals which were basking on the rocks and nursing their young. When we reached the Tasman Sea the wind was furious (you could lean into it and it would support your body) but we were told this was a calm day- WOW! Two hours felt like minutes on this cruise and we were sorry to leave except we had the flight back to look forward to.
We flew back over a different route which was less rugged but equally beautiful. This took us over the Milford Track which is one of the most walked ‘tramps’ in New Zealand. In New Zealand they maintain huts along the major tramping routes and you can schedule your walk to take advantage of them. We have added this 4 day walk to our list of things we must do before we die. We flew back down over Lake Wakapitu (the largest lake in New Zealand by volume) and home. Today over Queenstown they were having a parasail festival to remember a famous jumper that died in the skies several years earlier. Every few minutes another parasail would descend to land in the school field just a block away from us. They launch themselves off mount Coronet in the Remarkables just behind our site. We took our Frisbee and Duncan’s boomerang and spent a bit of downtime throwing, watching and soaking up the sun. Supper was at Hell’s pizza where we had simply some of the best pizza I’ve ever had. We wandered the streets, toured the harbour and made our way home. Tomorrow we pull up stakes and head up the west coast to Westland/Tai Poutini National park to climb on the glaciers- WOW!
Well the weather gods favoured us today – it was frosty and fair here, clear blue skies, puffy clouds rising up out of the mountain valleys and about 8 degrees (we were told to wear our beanies). This is the first day in a week that they have been able to fly into Milford Sound. The Fiordland area which is a coastal temperate rainforest gets rain over 200 days per year totalling over 10 meters of rainfall! It is one of the wettest areas in the world and the Tasman Sea that the fiords feed into ise considered the roughest in the world after Cape Horn with waves reaching 11 meters high. Fiordland National Park is the largest of New Zealand’s parks (about half the country seems to be parkland) and is a World Heritage Area. Well here is where language is going to fail me because there simply are not the words to describe the beauty and majesty of this area. If the number of pictures taken is any measure, Mary Rose snapped 147 today! We did a fly/cruise/fly expedition. You can drive, fly, walk or boat into Milford Sound however the drive is over 4 hours and not recommended for the faint of heart, boating is very rough around the coast so really the most efficient way to go is single engine aircraft (like our Cessna) or helicopter. We had a plane and pilot Blair for the day to ourselves.
The Flight into the sound (which is really a fiord as it is a drowned glacial valley NOT river valley) takes about 40 minutes and is both breathtaking and at times heart stopping. We quickly climbed to about 7000 feet which placed us above most peaks but still below the bigger ones and gave us an eagle eye view of the area. We flew northwest over four different ranges: The Remarkables (outside our campsite), the Richardson Mountains, the Humboldt Mountains and finally the Darran Mountains to reach the Tasman Sea. The mountains change from more gentle rounded schistose mountains, glacial worn with scree slopes inland to the jagged, rugged and higher granitic gneiss mountains of the coast. We saw braided rivers, spires, crags, cirques and glaciers and for those Tolkien fans with our hearts in our throats we flew over Isengard and through the pass where Gandalf makes his escape from the tower on the eagle’s back – WOW! We landed at the head of Milford Sound which involves coming out of the mountains over the sea, turning around, dropping several thousand feet into the fiord and landing on a short airstrip between steep mountains right at the base of Lady Evelyn falls – WOW!
Here while it was still cold the sun was out and we boarded our cruise ship the ‘Sinbad’ for a tour of the fiord. The ship was less than half full and the people really eager to see us as they hadn’t been able to tour for almost a week. The road into Milford Sound has been closed due to rock fall and the weather hasn’t allowed flights in. Our cruise lasted two hours and went up one side of the fiord and back along the other. Describing this trip could take pages but I’ll try to do it in a paragraph. The Sound which is a deep U shaped drowned glacial valley from about 14,000 years ago is filled with sea water but topped with a layer of tannin rich fresh water up to 10 meters deep. The walls of the gorge are covered with temperate rainforest – beeches, ferns, etc. which cling to slopes that are almost vertical. There is virtually no soil so the plants form a tangled root mat and less than 5% of the plants are anchored to the face so plant avalanches are common. If you can see the rock there was an avalanche in the recent past. The freshwater pours down the sides of the fiord from hanging valleys. As the glaciers retreated and melted, the rivers that once flowed on the top of the ice were left perched high up the valley wall and are now spectacular waterfalls hundreds of meters high. All the rain over the past week meant that every river was full to bursting and the fiord was showered with falling water, spray and rainbows. On several occasions our captain, who had a good sense of humour and later let the boys steer the ship hugged the cliff edge and gave all of us outside a good shower under the waterfalls. The sound is host to all sorts of life including black coral, crested penguins and marine mammals including seals which were basking on the rocks and nursing their young. When we reached the Tasman Sea the wind was furious (you could lean into it and it would support your body) but we were told this was a calm day- WOW! Two hours felt like minutes on this cruise and we were sorry to leave except we had the flight back to look forward to.
We flew back over a different route which was less rugged but equally beautiful. This took us over the Milford Track which is one of the most walked ‘tramps’ in New Zealand. In New Zealand they maintain huts along the major tramping routes and you can schedule your walk to take advantage of them. We have added this 4 day walk to our list of things we must do before we die. We flew back down over Lake Wakapitu (the largest lake in New Zealand by volume) and home. Today over Queenstown they were having a parasail festival to remember a famous jumper that died in the skies several years earlier. Every few minutes another parasail would descend to land in the school field just a block away from us. They launch themselves off mount Coronet in the Remarkables just behind our site. We took our Frisbee and Duncan’s boomerang and spent a bit of downtime throwing, watching and soaking up the sun. Supper was at Hell’s pizza where we had simply some of the best pizza I’ve ever had. We wandered the streets, toured the harbour and made our way home. Tomorrow we pull up stakes and head up the west coast to Westland/Tai Poutini National park to climb on the glaciers- WOW!
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Lord of the Rings safari
March 27, 2010
Rainy to start the day and cold but already the clouds are lifting up the mountains and clear sky is peeking through. We were picked up by Jill and her jeep at 8:30 and headed off for a journey through the Wakatipu basin – an area where many scenes from The of Lord of The Rings was filmed. For the Tolkien fans we are off to see: The White Mountains, Minas Tirith, Pillars of the Kings, Ford of Bruinen, the site of the Warg attack and the Road to Mordor. We headed North up the basin and across the end of the lake which is drained by a single river flowing North up along the base of the Remarkable Mountains (The Misty Mountains) and followed a dirt track up into the mountains. The views were spectacular as we were almost in the clouds. We then crossed the Kawarau River, still heading north and stopped on the mountain side to watch a bungy jumper take the dive into the canyon. This is the site of the origin of commercial bungy jumping, before then it was just some whackadoodle guys that travelled around the world doing it for thrills. AJ Hackett one of the two founders, supposedly hid in a broom closet overnight at the Eifel tower and jumped the following morning in a tux, holding a bottle of champagne with his girlfriend watching. He made lots of press as he didn’t splat and the gendarmes let him leave the country the same day. He now lives in France and seems to do just fine in the bungy jumping game. Connor has expressed his desire to do this and Mary Rose is in agreement as long as she gets to push him off the platform!
Further north we reached Arrowtown. This is a quaint little village, now with a historical architectural designation that was built in the 1860’s during the gold rush. It is now a tourist town and agricultural land supported by massive (unsustainable?) irrigation. Here I pretended to be Isoldore and rode the path where I was to be ambushed and lost the one ring (everyone thought I looked stupid but who cares). We then went off track into the Arrow River itself – great fun with lots of bumps and shooting spray. We stopped for tea and a bit of gold panning and managed to bring home a few flakes. While there is still mining going on in New Zealand there is no commercial fluvial or placer mining left. Finally we headed South again down the other side of the basin to Skippers Canyon. Here another beautiful set of views and a small climb up the hills to a rocky outlook. Again this area opened up for gold mining in the 1860’s and the pass through the mountains had to be hand dug as the rock kept crumbling, it took 7 years to cut by hand! Viewed and climbed out we headed back to town for a late lunch and a bit of a break.
The afternoon was spent in Queenstown in search of greenstone (nephrite jade) for Duncan. The Maori highly prized the jade they found (predominantly in boulders through the upper valleys) for its colour and beauty but also as it was the hardest stone around to make tools with. It was prized, revered and traded by them. We’ve been looking for a piece for Duncan and finally found an amulet made by a local Maori craftsman. According to the Maori people jade should not be bought for oneself, but must be received as a gift so Duncan received the gift of an infinite spiral symbolizing friendship.
Tomorrow it is up and early for another shot at Milford sound. The weather reports look favourable for flying, so we’ve got our fingers crossed.
Rainy to start the day and cold but already the clouds are lifting up the mountains and clear sky is peeking through. We were picked up by Jill and her jeep at 8:30 and headed off for a journey through the Wakatipu basin – an area where many scenes from The of Lord of The Rings was filmed. For the Tolkien fans we are off to see: The White Mountains, Minas Tirith, Pillars of the Kings, Ford of Bruinen, the site of the Warg attack and the Road to Mordor. We headed North up the basin and across the end of the lake which is drained by a single river flowing North up along the base of the Remarkable Mountains (The Misty Mountains) and followed a dirt track up into the mountains. The views were spectacular as we were almost in the clouds. We then crossed the Kawarau River, still heading north and stopped on the mountain side to watch a bungy jumper take the dive into the canyon. This is the site of the origin of commercial bungy jumping, before then it was just some whackadoodle guys that travelled around the world doing it for thrills. AJ Hackett one of the two founders, supposedly hid in a broom closet overnight at the Eifel tower and jumped the following morning in a tux, holding a bottle of champagne with his girlfriend watching. He made lots of press as he didn’t splat and the gendarmes let him leave the country the same day. He now lives in France and seems to do just fine in the bungy jumping game. Connor has expressed his desire to do this and Mary Rose is in agreement as long as she gets to push him off the platform!
Further north we reached Arrowtown. This is a quaint little village, now with a historical architectural designation that was built in the 1860’s during the gold rush. It is now a tourist town and agricultural land supported by massive (unsustainable?) irrigation. Here I pretended to be Isoldore and rode the path where I was to be ambushed and lost the one ring (everyone thought I looked stupid but who cares). We then went off track into the Arrow River itself – great fun with lots of bumps and shooting spray. We stopped for tea and a bit of gold panning and managed to bring home a few flakes. While there is still mining going on in New Zealand there is no commercial fluvial or placer mining left. Finally we headed South again down the other side of the basin to Skippers Canyon. Here another beautiful set of views and a small climb up the hills to a rocky outlook. Again this area opened up for gold mining in the 1860’s and the pass through the mountains had to be hand dug as the rock kept crumbling, it took 7 years to cut by hand! Viewed and climbed out we headed back to town for a late lunch and a bit of a break.
The afternoon was spent in Queenstown in search of greenstone (nephrite jade) for Duncan. The Maori highly prized the jade they found (predominantly in boulders through the upper valleys) for its colour and beauty but also as it was the hardest stone around to make tools with. It was prized, revered and traded by them. We’ve been looking for a piece for Duncan and finally found an amulet made by a local Maori craftsman. According to the Maori people jade should not be bought for oneself, but must be received as a gift so Duncan received the gift of an infinite spiral symbolizing friendship.
Tomorrow it is up and early for another shot at Milford sound. The weather reports look favourable for flying, so we’ve got our fingers crossed.
A day in Queenstown
March 26, 2010
Well like the weather, plans change, as a matter of fact plans change because of the weather. We got up early ready to fly only to find out our Milford sound flight was cancelled. While it looked all right in Queenstown apparently the sound was closed in and windy and no planes could fly in. We swallowed our disappointment, rearranged our itinerary and rebooked for Sunday – the long range forecast for the area looks good. As this is the start of fall we have been warned that the weather is not something you can rely on and so far we have been pretty lucky. This left us with a day to enjoy some of the local sites which started with a gondola ride up the Remarkables. About 300 meters behind our campsite the mountains literally rear up almost vertically. They have strung a gondola cable straight up the mountain behind us at what looks like a 70 degree angle. Suffice to say that the ride makes your palms itch but the view from the top is spectacular looking up and down the lake and all around the surrounding peaks. From the top is also where a number of extreme sports take place. You can bungy jump, bungy swing, parasail or luge – we chose to luge. The luge course is a concrete track of twists, turns and tunnels that you ride on a small wheeled sled controlled with handlebars like a bike. The run is just shy of a kilometer and at the end you grab a chair lift that also hauls your sled up with you. We started with the scenic run but of course nothing would do but for Connor to do the advanced track as well. It was a blast!
We had a lovely lunch at our campsite made up of locally made bread and several New Zealand cheeses we bought in town. It was then off to the mini-golf course. This is the most amazing mini-golf I have ever seen. It is indoor and made up of over 1000 hand-made miniatures. Each hole has a theme (airport, space port, gold mine, etc.) and all the scenery and models are custom built, it is like playing on a model train set. Every hole also was animated so things moved, made sounds and played music depending on where your ball went. The course also was hard and none of us got more than a couple of holes at par. While you don’t come to New Zealand to play mini-golf, this was a unique experience. We toured the ‘mall’ which is the main shopping street down by the harbour then went home for a quiet supper of local cod and N.Z. scallops – delicious. While the weather report is not favourable for tomorrow we are up and out early for our Safari of the Scenes, a 4WD experience into the bush to visit some of the stunning sites where Peter Jackson filmed the Lord of the Rings.
Well like the weather, plans change, as a matter of fact plans change because of the weather. We got up early ready to fly only to find out our Milford sound flight was cancelled. While it looked all right in Queenstown apparently the sound was closed in and windy and no planes could fly in. We swallowed our disappointment, rearranged our itinerary and rebooked for Sunday – the long range forecast for the area looks good. As this is the start of fall we have been warned that the weather is not something you can rely on and so far we have been pretty lucky. This left us with a day to enjoy some of the local sites which started with a gondola ride up the Remarkables. About 300 meters behind our campsite the mountains literally rear up almost vertically. They have strung a gondola cable straight up the mountain behind us at what looks like a 70 degree angle. Suffice to say that the ride makes your palms itch but the view from the top is spectacular looking up and down the lake and all around the surrounding peaks. From the top is also where a number of extreme sports take place. You can bungy jump, bungy swing, parasail or luge – we chose to luge. The luge course is a concrete track of twists, turns and tunnels that you ride on a small wheeled sled controlled with handlebars like a bike. The run is just shy of a kilometer and at the end you grab a chair lift that also hauls your sled up with you. We started with the scenic run but of course nothing would do but for Connor to do the advanced track as well. It was a blast!
We had a lovely lunch at our campsite made up of locally made bread and several New Zealand cheeses we bought in town. It was then off to the mini-golf course. This is the most amazing mini-golf I have ever seen. It is indoor and made up of over 1000 hand-made miniatures. Each hole has a theme (airport, space port, gold mine, etc.) and all the scenery and models are custom built, it is like playing on a model train set. Every hole also was animated so things moved, made sounds and played music depending on where your ball went. The course also was hard and none of us got more than a couple of holes at par. While you don’t come to New Zealand to play mini-golf, this was a unique experience. We toured the ‘mall’ which is the main shopping street down by the harbour then went home for a quiet supper of local cod and N.Z. scallops – delicious. While the weather report is not favourable for tomorrow we are up and out early for our Safari of the Scenes, a 4WD experience into the bush to visit some of the stunning sites where Peter Jackson filmed the Lord of the Rings.
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