Glenorchy & Paradise

Tuesday 3 June

A surprisingly sunny and comparatively warm day in Glenorchy - with 7 of us parked up at the NZMCA, including several doggos and the custodian's cat.

While Abby got on with her working day, Louis set off on a cycle ride and Jez & I took Harley for a walk around the lagoon. The walkway started just behind the NZMCA camp and we weren't far along the track before we met Kaia, the Vizsla/GSP cross who was absolutely beautiful but very teenager and full of cheeky GSP traits! Harley wanted to be friends but found her a little too bouncy and excitable! The Lagoon walkway wended its way around, over and across a beautiful area of wetlands with amazing views of Mt Earnslaw/Pikirakatahi and rippled reflections of the surrounding mountains with their dappling of snow. It's around 5km long and was very scenic. We bumped into Louis on his bike along the way - he had been down along the waterfront and decided he'd cycle this same path - quite a challenge crossing the wetlands on narrow boardwalks on a mountain bike!

Down at the waterfront Jez took Harley back and I went exploring along the lake shore and out onto the pier. The River Dart/Te Awa Wakatipu flows into the lake at the top here, bringing meltwater down from the Dart Glacier in the Southern Alps and flowing through Mt Aspiring National Park. It's a bit bigger and a lot colder than its namesake in Devon where my family used to spend a fortnight each summer. Out on the shingly bar at the delta of the river there was a busload of Asian tourists marvelling at the views, and a few local fishermen trying to catch some brown trout. One of them had brought their old black lab, Betty, along with them and she was happily featuring in many a tourist photo, then decided I looked like a safe refuge so came and sat on my feet for about 10 minutes!!

There were some fascinating photos of historic Glenorchy in the big red shed and information on a bunch of walks around the area and places to visit - will definitely have to come back again for longer.

Took a gander at the tourist shops on my way home and managed not to buy any of the tempting treats at Frank’s Corner. It sold a beautiful, quirky, colourful selection of local and kiwi produced "cool stuff" including merino, hand dipped candles, fun pottery, cute sheep, patchwork kiwis, stunning native bird earrings and Glenorchy red shed pins!

After lunch Louis and I took the somewhat bumpy road out to Paradise - home to sheep, piwakawaka, a fabulous homestead and more Lord of the Rings movie locations than pretty much anywhere else in NZ. The sealed road ran out not far out of Glenorchy and we dropped onto a fairly decent gravelled road. Pulled into the DOC camp at Diamond Lake to check it out for the future, but it was not super exciting and the long drop was quite grim - so apart from the resident piwakawaka there was not much to recommend it.

Not far on from here, passing through the woods of Lothlorien, the roadway became increasingly bumpy and we hit a few fords which were not deep, but were extremely rocky and gnarly... the sheep at the first one looked quite shocked that we had decided to tackle it and looked on with amusement!

We seemed to be driving ever closer to cloud and rain as we headed up the valley, and the views ahead became more and more moody and threatening. As we passed the Paradise sign we spotted a fabulous Arcadia Homestead down by the riverside - this 11 bedroom mansion was built in 1906 by a Cambridge classics professor who fled from the UK when his fiancee fell in love with his father - whoa! It was absolutely stunning, and could have been ours in 2020 for the pocket change of NZ$20M!

So many cattle and heaps of merino sheep grazing up here - some in rural pastures, some happily scavenging in the grass along the roadside. They seemed fairly unfazed by our presence and stared at us as we crawled past. The gnarled old trees in the woods behind them seemed quite familiar - turns out not only was this the setting for Lothlorien and the Hobbit's journey through forested areas, but Taylor Swift filmed a video here and several TV shows & movies have been set up here including homegrown TV favourite "One Lane Bridge" and Jane Campion's "Top of the Lake".

The weather and the landscapes in this part of the Lakes region are absolutely spectacular - at every turn a new vista opened up and the colours in the late afternoon sunshine merely served to highlight their rugged beauty.

Dinner at the Moho - delicious Italian meatballs cooked by Abby then time to rewatch the Mission Impossible movies starting at the first 🎞️