Daily Archives: March 20, 2015

Fishing and Hiking

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That’s how we ended the last four days of the trip.  Some days we hiked together and others I fly fished and Ann took her new GPS and went for a 20 kilometer or so hike.  Fun was had by all.  Here are the results:

We spent one morning driving out to Milford Sound since it's considered a "must see" down in Fjordland...

...then in the afternoon hiked Key Summit...

...which was another hike we did last year that was worth a second go. Three hour round trip and you get great views from the top.

 

On the way back north, we stopped for two nights at a wonderful lodge at Lake Ohau.

I caught and released a bunch of small rainbows here (none were big enough to warrant a photo though).

Out of Twizel, Ann hiked Fraser Creek (a couple miles west of town)...

...while I, yes, went fishing again. But no catching...

...but, oh what a gorgeous day! I felt a little better later in the day when we stopped at the local hunting/fishing shop and they said the fishing had gone dead in March after a good Jan/Feb. It's all about timing, eh?

 

More fishing - this time out of Clyde on the Clutha River...

...while Ann went upriver for a hike...

 

...and captured this beautiful view.

And, we'll end the photos of the trip with this shot on the swing backyard of our cabin in Clyde.

What a lovely trip.  Three weeks in the South Island.  I’d go back tomorrow, but we’ve got work to do to get ready of the next leg of the adventure – sailing all the way back across the Pacific to get Charisma back on the west coast.

Queenstown And Adjacent Glenorchy

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We pulled into Queenstown for the night and asked the desk manager at the hostel what we should do.  He asked if we’d ever been to Glenorchy.  We said, “No”, nor had we really even heard of it.  His response, “You must go there.  It’s only a 45 minute drive”.  So we did.  Take a look and you’ll see why.

We just stayed the night at Queenstown. Here's the view from our hostel.

Hmm, we're not even there yet, but this is looking promising.

 

OK, this is definitely looking good.

Even though it was a cloudy day, the scenery was fantastic. The town? Oh, it just had a couple cafes and a couple hostels, but it was all about the scenery.

 

Spectacular!

 

Highway along Wakitipu Lake.

 

And what did we do at the end of the road? Hike, of course. This is where the four-day Routeburn Trail across to Milburn Sound starts.

Colorful forest mushrooms.

And a trail selfie to complete the day.

 

Hiking To Rob Roy Glacier

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We did this hike outside of Wanaka last year and it was so beautiful we decided to do it again.  It didn’t disappoint.

Entering the glacial valley you'd swear you somehow got magically transported to Scotland. This is the view from the parking area at the end of the road where the trail starts.

 

It's about a three hour round trip to the glacier if you don't stop to take pictures and ogle the scenery - impossible!

The trail starts along a mountain river...

...pretty quickly climbs through a sub-alpine forest...

 

...then above tree line to the glacial waterfalls...

 

...and then to the glacier itself.

It's so huge. The sight, sounds of waterfalls, rockfall, avalanches are so overwhelming to the senses there's only one thing one can do...

...take a glacial nap!

On the way down a gentle green valley and meandering mountain river welcomes us back.

Everyone Loves A Train ride (by Ann)

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After four days on mountain bikes we decided to take a train ride. The Taieri River Gorge Train to Dunedin. Bob loves trains and was really hoping to do the ride from Christchurch to Greymouth across Arthur’s Pass but it wasn’t fitting into our schedule. We asked other cyclists about the Taieri train and they all encouraged us to go.

I love watching spectacular scenery going by. Bob does the driving because he worries about other crazy tourists forgetting which side of the road to be on, so he misses out on a lot of the stunning views. He was like a kid in a candy store… he would not give up his choice location on the “back porch” of our coach.

You can see Ann also enjoying standing outside watching the world go by.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No need to say more…just enjoy the pictures! You certainly can see where the word gorge-ous comes from!

The train station is in the middle of nowhere. You drive 20 minutes over a shingle (gravel) road from the nearest pavement to get here.

 

Our train car.

Here's the gorge. In the far left you can "just" see one of the bridges that we travelled over.

 

Yow! Some of these bridges spanned some deep ravines and were barely wider than the train.

The tunnels were no wider than the bridges. You had to be careful not to stick your head out the side going into one of these. Inside, there was less than a foot of clearance on either side.

The two hour ride brought us into Dunedin along the coast where we stayed the night at a nice little Bed and Breakfast before heading back the next day. (This is the train station)

 

The station was beautifully preserved and a real throwback to another time.

Downtown Dunedin. This shot reminded us that for most of our three weeks on the South Island we didn't see any stoplights. Nothing but very small towns. And the only traffic jams were a farmer and his dogs driving their sheep across the road.