New Zealand (you guessed it!) – Wanaka to Te Anau

24^th February, 2020

We awoke suitably rested and wandered across the park towards breakfast. The morning was wonderfully clear and bright. The air in New Zealand is truly wonderful (when the smoke from the Australian bushfires is affecting it – apparently the snow on the mountains changed colour as a result). The view across the lake was also clear and bright, as you can see…

To prove it is a truly small world, we were just crossing the street and we slowed to allow a car to pass when the said car braked to a halt a short way up the road and this lady ran out shouting ‘JOHN!!!’. You will not be too surprised to read that this does not usually happen to me, so we were a bit surprised, but this lady was Lana Whipp, an ex-colleague of mine from Emanuel School, who is herself a Kiwi and had moved back to NZ with her husband and children and who was equally surprised to see me! Stupidly we didn’t take a photo (she was in a hurry to get her children and herself to school), but what a pleasant surprise!

A good breakfast later – Val particularly enjoyed her salmon poke (pronounced ‘po-kay’) – and it was off again to our next destination, Te Anau where we would be spending two nights as a springboard for our visit to Milford Sound.

First though we had a detour to Diamond Lake. This was only a short drive and is, in itself, not as much of an attraction as some (quite small, normal colour water, no diamonds), but as ever there was a nice walk around it, which we did and then Val headed back to the car and I headed upwards for the real reason for visiting Diamond Lake, the view from above it. I did not want Val waiting longer than necessary, so I walked up the mountain surprisingly quickly, puffing like a steam train, but determined to get to ‘the view’. First stop was a view of Diamond Lake itself…

Onwards and upwards I went until the combined views of Lakes Wanaka and Hawea were presented to me – and wow, was it worth the climb. The photos will, once again only give you a feel for it, but I hope they can convey some of the breadth of the vista, with the lakes and the mountains and the sky. I have picked out the best of the many photos…

I then ran back down the track, much to the surprise and possible amusement of those coming up and caught up with Val at the car. Well worth it.

It was then back on SH6, the bridges and culvert numbers continuing to rise as we headed south. Lots of impressive views of course, including this one of Queenstown in the distance.

We were not stopping there at this time (we would drop in after Te Anau and Milford Sound), but you cannot avoid Lake Wakatipu on which it stands. In the words of the invaluable Wikipedia, ‘With a length of 80 kilometres (50 mi), it is New Zealand’s longest lake, and, at 291 km² (112 sq mi), its third largest. The lake is also very deep, its floor being below sea level, with a maximum depth of 380 metres (1,250 ft). It is at an altitude of 310 metres (1,020 ft), towards the southern end of the Southern Alps. The general topography is a reversed “N” shape or “dog leg”.’

We were driving down the eastern side of the most southerly end with the mountain range of The Remarkables to our left and the lake to our right – with more mountains on the other side. You are no doubt wondering about the name of the mountains and here is Wikipedia to the rescue once again: ‘The mountains were named The Remarkables by Alexander Garvie in 1857-58 allegedly because they are one of only two mountain ranges in the world which run directly north to south. An alternate explanation for the name given by locals is that early Queenstown settlers, upon seeing the mountain range during sunset one evening, named them the Remarkables to describe the sight.’

I will return with photos of these in a later post and you can judge for yourselves whether they truly are remarkable. For now we were much enchanted with the lake and the mountains opposite including one part of them entitled The Devil’s Staircase. They certainly seem to have some fanciful names, these Kiwis and it was by no means evident from looking at the range to see which bit was the ‘staircase’, so once again we had to look it up, which was not as easy as it might have been as it doesn’t get a mention on Wikipedia. However, I did find this possible and definitely more humorous suggestion as to the name, if you will pardon the rather lengthy explanation…

‘The first European known to have crossed the Staircase was a man named Green, said to be brother to the celebrated sculler in New South Wales of that name. He was a ship’s carpenter by trade, and had just completed a job for Mr. Rees. Returning down-country by way of Southland he got benighted on the Staircase, and had to put in a night amongst the rocks. Of course that put him in rather a bad frame of mind. Arriving at Dome Pass station, he related his troubles, in the course of which he remarked, “It came on as dark as blazes, and I tried my best to get down the hill, but it seemed to me I was stepping down to h—ll by the devil’s staircase; so I held on to the rock by the skin of my teeth till day-dawn.” Accordingly, it was seen, Mr. Green had established claims in connection with the ridge. The first idea was to satisfy these by naming it “Hold-on-to-the-Rock-by-the-Skin-of-the-Teeth.” On more mature reflection it was felt there was too much of the foreign graft in that designation to make it generally acceptable. Then, to name it “Black as Blazes” was open to a similar objection; so that the station people were in a manner forced to call it the Devil’s Staircase, or else abandon what they conceived to be their bounden duty to Mr. Green. For the time being it put them in an awkward fix. They were Free-Kirk-of-Scotland settlers, and as such were bound to renounce the devil and his works. On the other hand, they could not well ignore what they felt to be a righteous claim without doing violence to their conscientious scruples. These explanations are rendered necessary in defence of the integrity of the early settlers, by whom this unhallowed name was at first sanctioned.’

Hope you enjoyed that. OK, on to Te Anau. The town is a small one (about 2,000 people) and almost only there as a stopping off point for Milford Sound, but there are still plenty of things to do, especially if you are into mountaineering and trekking. Not surprisingly, Val and I are not into these pursuits, but did book ourselves for a cruise on Lake Te Anau (largest in the South Island and 2^nd in NZ after Lake Taupo) for one specific purpose – glow worms, but this time in a cave!

A quick bit of background. These caves were discovered in 1948 and are actually quite young at about 12,000 years, which means there is only one stalactite (apparently they take a very long time to form). The caves are also known as the Aurora Caves and are 6.7 km in length, rising from Te Anau Lake up to the top of the hillside to Lake Orbell, from where a large amount of water flows down the caves.

We were only going into the 250 metre section at the start which started with a very low entry (‘mind your head’) until you could stand up right with the water flowing loudly next to you.

There is even a spectacular waterfall in there.

We then arrived at a slightly quieter part, the lights were dimmed and we climbed aboard a boat and our guide pushed us off across a bit of still water in complete darkness and, eventually, silence. I half-expected the opening bars of Phantom of the Opera to ring out! After some disorienting gliding, we arrived where the glow worms were and spun gently about admiring them in silence. It was wonderfully calming and although we had seen glow worms before, still very thrilling. No photos allowed, so you will have to try and imagine it by shutting your eyes and imagining lots of stars.

Out we came into the sunlight, a cup of complimentary coffee and an interesting talk on the lifespan of a glow worm. It was then back across the lake, enjoying the views of Southland and Fjordland as this part of South Island is known.

Finally back for supper and a restful night before our next adventure on Milford Sound tomorrow.