The remarkable Remarkables, marvellous Milford and the big catch up..

It’s been a mad couple of weeks and so hard to keep up with my blog everyday ….so buckle up for the last couple of weeks – days 207 – 220!

Miles travelled – 986

Steps walked – 102384 – 51.19 miles

Floors climbed – 150 (1528 to go)

And so the journey south continues with this couple of weeks travelling from Wanaka to Wanaka via Queenstown, Milford Sound, Bluff, the Catlins, together with so much wildlife we are turning into a proper little couple of Attenboroughs .

There are a number of towns around Queenstown that were old gold mining towns and definitely worth a look. Arrowtown, Cromwell and Clyde were all great but very busy with Chinese tourists in their busloads – we really hadn’t appreciated the Chinese connection but they also came to the gold rush, staying long after the main miners had left and by mining the small amounts left behind also managed to make their fortune – who knew.

Beautiful Queenstown and the amazing Remarkable mountains – so impressive. Christy’s tip for here had been the famous Fergburger! However from looking at the constant queues of 30+ people there also seemed to be a strict queue code – you had to be under 25, have long and lithe limbs, have a gorgeous sun kissed tan and really good looking – so I just had to eat mine in front of Dave!

I have been umming and ahhing about doing something a bit daring but haven’t yet managed to get the courage to do anything mad and settled on the jet boats at Queenstown where some 20 year old misses bouncing your head off the canyon edge by inches – although I’m sure it’s a lot more scientific than that – a really good experience. I also managed to get Dave into the gondola to go above Queenstown and a photo stood near the edge but you could hear his heart pounding all the way back down.

Off then to Te Anau and the outstanding Milford Sound. We decided to splash out here and spend the night on the sound which was amazing – we had an hours hike in the Milford Track, Dave had a swim, saw seals and gorgeous Fiordland crested penguins and after an early wake up call in the morning sailed out into the Tasman Sea to see four pairs of Humpback Whales playing in the bay! They are only in the bay for a week – how lucky were we!

As we were so close to the end of New Zealand we thought we would get down to Bluff for the obligatory picture, which meant a night in Invercargill. This is the southern most city and has an abundance of one style of store……Tractors and farm-y type machinery, counting 6 shops on one street alone! Unfortunately that about sums up the town, so it was quickly off to Bluff and then onto the Catlins.

The Catlins hadn’t really been on our radar at all but we absolutely loved it here. We stayed at the Lazy Dolphin backpackers with the amazing Vickie and viewe from breakfast of the Hector dolphins playing in the bay all day and night. It was then off to Kaka point and Nugget point lighthouse. We stayed in the very luxurious spa run by Lisa but I had the most horrendous migraine ever which wiped me out for 3 days. I felt like I had been hit by a truck – poor Dave! All I could think about was our David and his cluster headaches – I don’t know how he did it! Luckily we did get to Surat beach beforehand and spend a few hours with the whole beach to ourselves…. and some huge sealions.

 

While in the Catlins we met a couple of girls who were telling us all about Roy’s Peak in Wanaka which had been closed for lambing when we first passed through – their pictures were so amazing we decided to re-route our journey back up the island so Dave could do the walk. We passed onto Dunedin before turning back inland to see the Albatross and perfectly formed tiny Blue penguins.

Final couple of stops for the week were in Clyde – we had spied the most lovely hotel and restaurant the first time we passed so took advantage of going for Daves walk and stopped over – we are really not getting to grips with this budgeting malarkey at all but were having a celebratory night as I’d just received confirmation that all my angst with work is finally over, after 2 very long and stressful years.

Final stop Wanaka, staying just outside at the Lake Hawea campsite. We managed to get one night in the ‘lakeside cabin’. The full translation of this is ‘small hot box by the edge of the lake, bed and fridge only, decking but no seats…..and miles from the toilets!’ But it was great to sit outside until 10.30 at night, albeit covered from head to toe in mossie spray to deter the pesky sandflies.

Now for Daves hike, Mt Cook and the road back to Auckland x❤️