November 8, Thursday

November 8, Thursday

I have a tour booked this morning, to visit the area around Queenstown.  I had to check out of the motel first however and park the car on the street since the motel is expecting some early check-ins today.  There were “Lord of the Rings” tours available but most sites no longer have anything left of the movie sets. We were only 7 people on the tour and I got to sit up front with the driver.  The tour was supposed to be from 8 am to 12:30 giving me plenty of time this afternoon to drive on the Fox Glacier / Franz Josef Glacier.

Since there isn’t much to see within Queenstown, which is very small, our first stop was just on the outskirts, on top of a hill that provided a view of the town.

 Great colours on a bright sunny day

 This is the hill the para-gliders should land on.

When we passed Lake Hayes, we were able to stop for an amazing photo op of the mirror images on the calm lake surface.

 
 Absolutely breath taking

Jigsaw puzzle ! ! ! !
Every photo of the reflections was beautiful

Our next stop was at the now famous A.J. Hackett Bungee Bridge.  This is where the first commercial bungee jumping was established in 1988.  People thought these two guys were absolutely crazy.  Who in their right minds would jump off a bridge with only a cord attached around their waist.  Bungee jumping was in its infancy and not many people had heard about it.  These two guys, AJ Hackett and Henry van Asch changed the design of the bungee cord to minimize the harsh bounce at the end of the cord.  They somehow got permission to use the bridge. (This would never have happened in the USA since everyone involved can be sued for everything under the sun.)   Although they advertised their new business, they did not get many takers.  They SUPPOSEDLY decided to advertise that if you were willing to jump off NAKED, you would not have to pay for the jump (I was not able to confirm this information on their web site.)  And their business took off!   Only the kiwis would think of doing something like this.  UN-FLIPPING-BELIEVABLE .   They set up a PR stunt in Paris and AJ jumped off the Eiffel Tower in 1987.   The Bungee Jumping Business was born and spread across the world. Hackett and van Asch are now millionaires.  

 Taking that first step off the bridge is the hardest.  Some people just jumped, others had to be coaxed.  NO KIDDING.

 Bouncy, bouncy

 and then they get lowered into a waiting dingy that brings them to shore.

43 meter bungee jump from the A.J. Hackett Bungee Bridge over the Kawarau River

You can now have three options of jumps: from the bridge, from a cliff face, or from a high wire.  They also have the Canyon Swing and the Ledge Swing.  None of these options appealed to me.  There is a sign which indicates that “the bungee cords are hand made from 100% latex rubber by skilled technicians at their Queenstown workshop.  The two guys also hold the international patents for bungee system.“

Our next stop was at a cheese factory in Gibbston Valley where we sampled a delicious selection of cheeses.  We were able to purchase some small portions and take them over to the Gibbston Valley Winery next door and sample some wines.   

 
Now THAT is a well organized stop: cheese and wine tasting together.  LOVE IT! This is not normally an area which would be considered as good wine growing region, but it is located in a valley that protects them from the cold and holds in the heat of summer.  

Back on the bus, we next stopped at the site of the famous Lord of the Rings “Pillars” for a photo op. What a disappointment; they can REALLY work magic with cameras and animation. 

 The river wasn’t that big and neither were the surrounding mountains. We weren’t even standing at an angle to see where the camera shot had been taken, from the river below, looking up and to the right of where we were standing. 


Our last stop of the tour was to Historic Arrowtown:  a mining community founded in the 1860s gold rush.  The town is very quaint and has been turned into a tourist area with plenty of shops and restaurants.  I went down to visit the Chinese Miners settlement. 

 Main street in Arrowtown


“Almost every Chinese gold seeker came from the Cantonese province of Guengdong in South China. The majority were young men and poorly educated.  They knew nothing of the countries that beckoned  and they left their families behind in China. Almost one in seven gold seekers died in New Zealand and their families never saw them again.”  “An archaeological excavation in 1983 has helped to build a picture of the Chinese settlement as it was.  Based on detailed information, several huts have been reconstructed and other ruins stabilised.”

They made their houses / shelters from whatever was available

 And they were tiny.  That is a 7 or 8 year old boy standing in front of this house.

 A group of school children are visiting the site.

 Very rustic accommodation, even cliff shelters 

 Had to take a picture of this door handle.  Helene, I know you would have LOVED this one.  Bonus, I got a great shot of the rock floor and wall.

 The rock shelter

Archeological site of another house.

I then walked back to the town along the Arrow River, which looks like a small stream. “The Arrow River is said to have been one of the richest sources of alluvial gold in the world.”  

 Path back to the town along the Arrow River

It's just a creek !

I stopped at a small café for lunch, opting out of visiting the museum, since I had a long drive ahead of me that afternoon

 and checked out some of the stores that had interesting art work for sale

 This was an outdoor restaurant as well.
 On our drive back to Queenstown, the driver pulled in at Kawarau River to let off the couple who were going to do some Jet Boating. 

 Drive back to Queenstown; lots of pastoral fields

 Jet boating on Shotover River.  One boat was doing do-nuts in the water.   Definitely too rough for my back, even if I did have time.

 Then it rushed up through the narrow rocky gorge

and disapeared around a bend, after passing under the iron bridge.

The tour had been scheduled to end at 12:30, but we did not get back to town until 1:30.  I had a really long 400 km drive ahead of me today (which was indicated as a 7 hour drive on the distance chart), so I was a bit worried about getting to Fox Glacier before it got dark. 

I was only a few kilometers out of Queenstown when I veered off Highway # 6 to take a shortcut through the mountains on Crown Range Road that my guide had recommended this morning.   The road went up, and up, and up with hairpin turns all the way up.  You definitely don’t want to be driving an RV up this road!  The view from the top was SPECTACULAR.

 

 Once at the top, the drive through the highlands was just as breathtaking in its starkness before finally coming down into a valley that ran along the Cardrona River.    I rejoined highway #6 at the town of Wanaka and continued my route north. I’m driving through the Southern Lakes district

South west coast of Lake Hawea

At one of the look out stops along Lake Hawea I hiked up a short distance on top of a hill to see if I could get a better view. Definitely worth it.

 North east coast of Lake Wanaka: NZ’s 4rth largest lake

Can't believe how beautiful this country is.  DEFINITELY my favourite.

l came to a road block: rock slide on the road.  Not sure if it was a natural occurrence or if it was a controlled one to prevent a disaster, but we were stopped there for about 20 minutes.  I struck up a conversation with a German woman whose car was behind mine and who was also travelling alone. 

Not obvious if it was natural, or if it had been blasted on purpose to widen the road.

 Above the rock slide


 After we got passed the rock slide, we ended up following each other for about 100 km. I led for a while; she led for awhile; kind of nice for a change since some of the roads are light on traffic. The roads were good and apart for the slow downs for those single lane bridges, we had both similar driving styles and made good time through this section of road.

I made it up to Haast and finally got to the coast, the Pacific Ocean, or should I say the Tasman Sea
Lookout at Knights Point

 The coast line is a Natural World Heritage Site
I took the time to stop at some look-out areas and so did the German lady. She left before I did since I needed to use the toilets here. Worse smelling ones on this part of the trip. I never did catch up to her after this stop.

When I leave the coast line again, it is back into the mountains and the forests.

 and more fields between the mountains

 Single lane bridges everywhere along the way
I had pre-booked a motel for two nights on Booking.com and although I had written down the name of the motel and the street address, for some reason I did not write down if it was in Fox Glacier or in Franz Josef. As I arrived on the outskirts of Fox Glacier I started keeping an eye out for the Bella Vista Motel. And there it was, one of the first establishments as I drove into town. It was almost 7 pm when I arrived.

 My room at the Bella Vista Motel

 My mess from the car

 and an extremely new and modern washroom

 It had been an incredibly long day and I was very tired, but I did not sleep well that night.  My back was acting up again and the mattress was not firm enough for support.  The weather for the next morning was supposed to be good, but clouding over in the afternoon according to the hotel manager, so I booked my helicopter flight over the glaciers for the next morning.