Life is Good in the Lakes

Monday 2 June

After the best day out on Milford Sound we packed up fairly early on King’s Birthday Monday and headed southeast to Mossburn then looped up north to Queenstown and on to Glenorchy.

The sun was shining gently through the clouds over the NZMCA campsite as we sorted everything out - after a few days in one place there is always more to clear up! We swung by the McKeowns fuel station in Te Anau to fill up for the next leg of our adventures and I got to say hi to the alpacas in the field next door - this little red headed fella was quite friendly and was keen for me to scratch his neck and his back - until it all became tooo much and he turned round and spat at me!

Heading out along Highway 94 the views and the cloudscapes were quite spectacular, and in places, almost apocalyptic with heavy lines of grey and some funky lenticular UFOs. We bumped into our Manapouri Happy Hour colleagues Jack and "Diane" at Mossburn when we stopped for coffee and snacks - they were just on their way back home to Otautau.

By chance we happened to show up at Fairlight just 5-10 minutes before the Kingston Flyer stoked up and left for Kingston - just like the previous time we came through this way! It was lovely seeing it against blue skies and it was looking very shiny & fabulous. We also spotted Poppa Tim, our fellow Snowy Riverite from Dunedin & Glenorchy - he and his friend were taking a trip on the train!

Just after Kingston we hit the southern end of Lake Wakatipu and followed the eastern shore up to Queenstown, marvelling at the amazing views. Back in March we had travelled this route in reverse in pouring rain and heavy cloud with barely a glimpse of the lake or surrounding mountains - it was wonderful to witness the staggering beauty of the landscape this time around.

As we left the lake shore and headed towards Queenstown, the landscape changed again, with well manicured farms and lifestyle blocks, dry stone walling, autumnal avenues of trees and boujee residences overlooking the river.

After negotiating Queenstown with great trepidation we hit the road north to Glenorchy - again following the lakeside. The route was quite challenging with a caravan - more steep and windy hills (both up & down) than we had expected, and one section where the road slimmed down considerably with a steep cliff up on the right and down on the left - holding our breath and hoping nobody would be coming in the opposite direction!

It was also much longer than we had anticipated and we were delighted to be welcomed to Glenorchy at last, almost an hour after leaving Queenstown. The NZMCA camp here has only been open 3 weeks and it was a great wee spot run by a lovely and very welcoming custodian who was flabbergasted to have 7 vans turn up on a Monday night... it had been quiet all King's Birthday Weekend. Harley had been travelling all day too so when the Tomkinsons arrived we took him for a walk up on the hill behind the campsite which afforded great views across the town and district.

We walked down to the pub for a drink but everything was seriously quiet and a bit chilly, so we headed back for dinner in the Moho before an abortive attempt at spotting the Aurora (all cloud and no colour)…