8 - 15 Feb 2018
South side of the sky
We collected the motor caravans on 8 Feb and after a lengthy handover
stocked up at a supermarket before driving through impressive Arthur's Pass to
Jacksons. The site there was a delight. It was in dark sky country and we have
never seen so many stars in our lives - it was as if we were in a planetarium.
We also went out on a successful search for glow-worms and did a short walk
through the forest to Ngarimu waterfall.
Then on to the Franz Josef Glacier where there was only time for a short
walk to a view point but the weather forecast for the next day was grim so we
thought we had better be satisfied with that rather than not see it at all. It
was only a short hop next day to Fox Glacier but we unable to make much use of
the time we had as there was torrential rain all day. The rain stopped in the
evening, and we were rewarded with the sight of a double ended rainbow.
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| Franz Josef Glacier |
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| Our site at Franz Josef |
From there it was a long drive to Wanaka, broken up with various stops
along the way and through the Haast Pass. Another long drive to Te Anau
followed, where we stayed for three nights to enable us to have a tour through
the Fjordland National Park and a two-hour cruise on the Milford Sound. Jono,
our tour guide, was brilliant, firing off information of all kinds and taking
us to places we wouldn't have found on our own. Apparently Milford Sound gets 220 days of rain per year - thankfully, we managed to choose one of the other 145. The cruise was amazing,
stunning scenery and sightings of bottle nosed dolphins.
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| En route to Milford Sound - Lake Gunn |
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| Milford Sound |
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| On Milford Sound |
Today (Thursday 15)
should have been a chill out day but unfortunately both John and Jane's van and
ours needed some attention at the garage. However, we had a very nice lunch at
The Ranch with desserts to die for while the work was being done.
Tomorrow it's onward to Dunedin. ....
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