February 26

Unlike the morning before, the skies were clear and calm – a wonderful day for flying.

Seriously Good Chocolates

Philippa picked us up and drove us down the hill to the office Stewart Island Flights has in town. It wasn’t that far from our cottage and we really could have walked, but we needed to settle our account anyway. It was still a nice gesture.

Once back at Invercargill, we picked up our car.  This time it was a new model and very comfortable.  Our first stop was Seriously Good Chocolates. It’s a very tiny shop, close to the central business district, that we went to last year. It’s set up more like a coffee shop. They were out of the salty-caramel-chocolates that we liked so much.  But we picked up 6 other varieties and they were all delicious!

McCone Family, Garston

The drive from Invercargill to Queenstown is very straight and flat, much different than most drives in the country. Nice hills were on both sides as we drove through green pastureland. After an hour and a half, I randomly suggested we stop and stretch our legs. I pulled up the geocaching site to see if one lay ahead that wouldn’t be too far off the roadway. There was one in Garston.

There was a pulloff with a handful of houses and a coffee caravan located off the road. The geocache seemed to be located near there, but in the bush of the hill behind. A bit of walking around and we found a trail. Alongside, there was the McCone Family, wooden cones with faces designed with random items. I have no idea if this was just set up for geocachers, but it sure was quirky.

View from Remarkables Road

Not much further on our drive, we found ourselves at the southern end of Lake Wakatipu. I was a bit surprised, as I felt like the road we had been travelling did not ascend at all.   I thought Queenstown was at elevation and later research shows it’s only at 357m (1171ft).

Chard Farm vineyards

We turned up the road to the Remarkables Ski Field. Public access was limited to 4km up to Windy Point since road construction was going on further up. But Windy Point had great views of the Frankton Arm of Lake Wakatipu and Lake Hayes. We found a couple of rocks to sit on to enjoy the view and eat our lunch. We had the place to ourselves but just as we finished our meal, two cars pulled up. It seemed to be a pattern this entire trip, which I quite liked.
Next we went to Chard Farm Winery. This was another “repeat” from a year ago. They have excellent wines and we stocked up for the days ahead. Once we got our groceries in the nearby New World, we made the stunning lakeside drive to Glenorchy where we stayed for 3 nights.

Funky Bunker

Our backyard at the Funky Bunker

I had booked a place called the Funky Bunker. I knew it would be different and quirky. It’s fairly complete for a bach, but it does not have a flush toilet. There’s a long drop located in the back. It consisted of two buildings. One is a bunker that was constructed for the movie, Vertical Limit, which was filmed in the nearby mountains. It contains the kitchen and lounge and has a laundry and hot shower attached. The other building is a caravan, which serves as sleeping quarters. They were located on a huge grassy lot with high hedges all around, providing loads of privacy.

It was very cozy and nicely decorated. There were three woodstoves, one in each building, and one located outside, and plenty of wood available in a shed.

The negative: I’m all for ingenuity, but Fred and I had issues with the homemade kitchen cabinet that basically had dishes sitting on the floor. We ended up washing the plates and two coffee cups before using them and keeping them on top of the counter.  Also, there was no lock for the caravan.  You couldn’t lock it from the inside, nor the outside.

We settled in, had dinner, and watched Ata Whenua – Shadowland. The DVD had been provided and is a beautiful film of Fiordland.

Backyard view, Funky Bunker

February 27

Swingbridge at start of Routeburn Track

I had often joked to Fred that today would be the Death March. We had planned the dayhike on the Routeburn track. I wanted to go to the Falls Hut and back, about 17.6k or 11 miles. There ended up being a geocache a bit beyond that we retrieved, so that upped the distance covered.

We. Are. Sore.

It was a half hour drive from Glenorchy to the start of the track. All of it was paved until the last right turn.

The track to the Flats Hut is mostly flat and is a forest track. There was lots of moss and lichen, a few swing bridges, then you passed a raging chasm and continue along the river – all very pretty. There weren’t the vast views I was expecting until the very end.

Second swingbridge, Routeburn

Once you pass the junction to Flats Hut, the track gets much more narrow, vertical, and rugged. There are a few more view opportunities and a huge slip to cross. You need to watch your footing more, but it’s still mainly forest.

We stopped to find a geocache and another pair of hikers saw us looking around. We explained geocaching to them and showed them the program on my iPad. So they started looking around too and wouldn’t you know, they found it! He was kind of apologetic about the find (no need to be). I think we may have two more recruits.

View from Routeburn Falls Hut

Then we arrived at the Falls Hut. I think this is the first actual DOC hut we’ve seen, and it was way larger than I thought it would be. Ultimate Hikes’ Lodge is right next to it and it makes it look like one large compound. We looked around a bit and went into the almost-empty dining room of the Hut. Only the DOC ranger was there and we asked if we could eat our lunch at one of the tables inside. This room had high ceilings and floor to ceiling windows to really take advantage of the views! He joined us at the table and we had an interesting talk with him. He even knew where the upper geocache was.

Routeburn Falls

You have to go past the Hut and Lodge a bit to see the waterfalls. At this point, you are above the treeline and the track really gets rugged. Often there really is no track and you must rely on getting from pole marker to pole marker. It was extremely rocky. We found the cache and I was glad. It started to get really windy and clouds were coming in.

So now we started down. It was a long way down and a long trek out. It’s hard to realize when you are heading in, just how far you’ve gone. It seemed to take twice as long to get out.

Once back at our bunker, I called Sam to confirm our kayak trip the following morning. I asked him how the outlook was weather-wise, and he said, “Abysmal.” So our kayak trip was cancelled and Sam said the weather system would be an issue until Tuesday, and we’d be long gone by then.

I really can’t complain, we’ve been so fortunate with weather until now. We had a cozy place to stay in bad weather and could just watch DVDs and drink wine if we wanted to.

February 28

Lake Sylvan forest

Our last full day in the country and as expected, it’s raining steadily and very windy. Fred built a fire in the bunker and we had some music playing. We eventually decided to venture into the town of Glenorchy by car (three blocks away) and parked on the main street of town. We found some reasonably priced Wi-Fi so we checked our email.

Lake Sylvan

After lunch, the showers subsided so we drove to Lake Sylvan. We parked at the carpark and crossed the large swingbridge. We decided to walk the loop track to the lake and return via the tramway line remnants from the 1920’s.  The track is very pretty, through thick forest with tufts of moss all about. It’s mainly flat and because of the morning rain, had large mud puddles in the middle of the track we had to walk around. As we got closer to the lake, more treeroots became obstacles to navigate.

We stopped at the lookout perched on the lakefront.  We had a very scenic view but had to cut our time short as the sandflies descended upon us.

Heading back via the old tramline made for a nice loop walk. You could see the wooden rails partially buried. The forest is taking over any evidence it ever existed.

March 1

It was very gray this morning, but no wind, and only a light drizzle. We fixed our last breakfast and packed up our gear. Then we headed into Glenorchy and went to Glenorchy Lodge for a Long Black and to check email.  The proprieter there stated it had been a busy season and that there had been an unexpected surge of Chinese tourists the past couple of weeks.  It was their Chinese New Year and New Zealand had been highly promoted in China.

Glenorchy wharf

By now the drizzle had let up and we walked to the wharf to attempt to find the geocache we couldn’t find a year ago when kayaking with Sam. A group of about 15 people were there (Chinese?), lining up for photos.  We couldn’t try to find the cache without looking very suspicious.   We finally left and walked a track towards the lagoon and found a cache there.

Not about to give up on the wharf cache, we returned and Fred had to climb under the deck, but finally found it!

Tourists at the Chinese Settlement, Arrowtown

We made the stunning drive to Queenstown. A parking spot opened up in front of us near the main intersection. We took advantage of the 30 minutes parking it allowed and strolled the waterfront a bit.  We had time to kill before our afternoon departure and thought we get another look around Arrowtown.

Last year, we went to Arrowtown and rented bicycles. We arrived about 9am and there wasn’t much open nor people around. This time, it was late morning and a very different atmosphere. We went to the Chinese Settlement and it was crowded. The Settlement was much smaller than I thought it would be. We ate our lunch on a hillside bench.

Pier on Lake Hayes

The road to the airport went right by Lake Hayes, so we parked and walked along the lakeside track for a bit. It was fun watching kids and dogs play in the lake.  Fred took some of his last photos.

Then on to the airport for our flight home. The past 3 weeks have gone all too quickly.

Epilogue>>>