Around and About- Glenorchy

Catch-up

To finish off our visit to Glenorchy, here are a few photos taken out and about-

Looking out towards Glenorchy and Lake Wakatipu. The Glenorchy Walkway loops through the wetland on either a one or two hour walk.

Looking in the opposite direction towards the Routeburn and the Dart River valley with the Humbolt Mountain range along the back, and the small Mt Alfred on the right.

We walked the shorter lagoon loop on one of the miserably overcast and rainy days. This would have been a great walk in autumn, with all the willows in colour. Or in summer when there would be water fowl and babies about. As it was, we only saw a couple of black swans and half a dozen ducks and that was it. It looked as though the boardwalks had been under water during the last few days, water weed had washed over the boards.

On the way back from the lagoon, the path passed a local's personal junk yard...

...which provided me with some good subject material! How's that gypsy caravan, I can just see it being towed behind the Ranger.

The majestic Humbolt Mountains across the valley from Glenorchy. If you look carefully you can see the red of Kinloch Lodge at the bottom centre. Which makes the mountains a pretty impressive size.

Further down the road heading towards the Rees Valley are Mt Albert on the left and Mt Earnslaw.

I took these last few photos just before we left Glenorchy. I spotted lots of interesting subjects while we were out and about but there's only so many times I can get David to stop for me so I went on my own little tiki-tour. Here's another old farmhouse on the side of the road.

And a colourful windmill I spotted in an overgrown paddock.

Back in town, I'd been waiting for a few days to capture the tiny & historic(1891) Glenorchy Library in fine weather.

A Glenorchy house- as they used to be before the road made it to this little backwater at the top of the lake (in 1962, unsealed until 1998). Located on a reserve near the foreshore, the water tower (and some concrete foundations) are all that remains of the Mt Earnslaw Hotel which burnt down in 1959.

Head of the Lake Community Church- another one to add to my country church album.

And a final collection of the most famous building in Glenorchy; the historic Wharf Shed.

Welcome to Paradise

Catch-up

I wanted to clear the decks from our visit to Glenorchy, so while I have some extra time (we're still in Franz Josef dodging rain), I'll post this and another shorter blog post before I move on to the West Coast blogs.

You'll remember that we had a wet week in Glenorchy with just 2 fine days (hmm...that sounds familiar), the first day we did the road trip around the lake to Kinloch and down to the end of the road. The second fine day we drove up the Dart River Valley to the end of the road. This was another road with warning signs although going by the traffic, I don't think too many people take much notice of them.

Most of the rental cars & motorhomes we passed were heading to just one place, Paradise, which luckily is near the beginning of the road although after one quite large ford. Paradise has been made famous by Peter Jackson and the LOTR films and Top of the Lake (Jane Campian) amongst other films that have been shot in the area, so it's on the tourist must see list.

I'm not so sure it looked like paradise this morning though, the sun hadn't reached into the valley as yet and the air was cold and frosty. It also looked like the usual rolling farmland surrounded by snow capped mountains that we've seen many times on our travels. That was until I spotted this magnificent homestead set back off the road. 

This is Arcadia House, the house that was built (in 1906) from a broken heart. Englishman Joseph Fenn fled to NZ after his father stole his fiancee away from him. He settled and isolated himself in (ironically) Paradise, where he bought a plot of land and lived in a small hut. He then fell in love with Poppy, the daughter of the Aitkens family who lived up the road and ran Paradise House which had guest house accommodation for visiting tourists.

This is from an information board at the DOC Camp the end of the road.

When Poppy turned down Fenn's advances he reacted by building Arcadia, a stunning guest house. Built using local Red Beech timber, Arcadia has 12 bedrooms, a vast staircase, a library and smoking room, several lounges and dining rooms, tiled bathrooms and oriental styled wallpapers. It's thought that he built the house to show  Poppy what she missed out on. He never lived in it, preferring to stay in his own humble cottage and employed managers to run the guest house. Fenn became even more reclusive and was known as "The Hermit of Paradise". 

On our way back past later in the day, the sun has reached the homestead and so had several carloads of tourists who were lined up along the fence taking photos. We stopped a little further down the road. 

Arcadia is privately owned by the Veint family and is part of a high country farm. Oh, and Arcadia is the Greek word for.....Paradise. Here's another information panel from the DOC camp, it's fascinating reading about the history and hardships of the areas we visit.

We carried on up the valley, farmland soon turning into tussock and matagouri...

...surrounded by a dramatic backdrop of towering snow capped mountains with heavy Beech forests on the lower slopes. The odd shaped summit of Mt Knox (above) is part of the many mountain peaks that can be found here in the Mt Aspiring National Park.

There are ten fords to cross (I counted them) and not all of them are easy going, it rough across a huge gravel slide that has numerous cascading streams of  water.

Finally we reach the end of the road and a DOC campground in one of the most isolated areas we've been to- there's a guy in his off-road RV who looks to have stayed the night, a fisherman going by the rods on the roof. You can see his vehicle in the photo below.

The campground is beside the Dart River and there are a number of tramping tracks that leave form here, although the main Rees-Dart Track is closed because of major slips blocking the way. The towering Mt Earnslaw (below) overlooks the valley.

DOC (Department of Conservation) do a awesome job providing information and amenities and looking after our national parks, camps and tracks; they often receive criticism from various quarters but I'd like to say that we have been very impressed with all we've seen. And we've seen plenty. 

Here's another old-time character from the valley which was on one of the panels in the shelter. It's hard to imagine how much of a struggle our early pioneers and settlers had in these remote and isolated areas with such rugged landscapes and harsh environments.

We head back down the valley stopping to check out the wide braided Dart River from afar. This is where we'd seen a tour bus earlier, parked on the gravel. It's gone now, and we can see a spot of blue where it was parked. When I zoom in I can see that it's a tractor with a mobile jetty and ladder on the back. And then we catch sight of a tiny black dot zipping back and forward further down river. Jet boat tours!  

The sun has finally reached into the valley as we head back through the tiny settlement of Paradise, which now lives up to its name.

We stop one last time to take another photo of the 'Paradise' sign, this time with the sun shining on us.

We head around Mt Alfred and up the other side of the Dart River to our next stop, a DOC Campground beside the Routeburn River...

...which is where the walk to the Lake Sylvan Outlet leaves from. We're hoping to do the circuit via the tramway.

We have lunch at one of the picnic tables and then cross the river into the forest.

The track is well groomed as we weave our way through the established Red Beech forest and up the old moraine terraces left behind thousands of years ago by retreating glaciers. We cross over the outlet stream a number of times. We're not that keen on walks like this, we love lots of understory with thick mosses and ferns smothering the forest floor. There's also a lack of bird life in the dark interior. 

Some wag (DOC worker) has added this slab of stone to a small tree trunk, the nearby path has recently been graded and widened. Very soon it'll be hard to decide how the slab found its way onto the sapling. 

Finally we reach Lake Sylvan where there's a lovely viewing platform beside the outlet stream. Unfortunately the view is straight into the sun and we feel cheated that we can't get close to the lake edge. I'm not too sure that overseas visitors would enjoy this walk so much, it's pretty plain with none of the luxuriant greenery along the path- perhaps we are just getting too fussy.

We carry on around the lake edge to join up with the old tramline route back to the carpark. From across a bay we can see the viewing platform and the mountains behind.

And now the bush is alive with birds, top from left to right- a male Tomtit, a fast moving male Rifleman and those ever friendly and inquisitive Bush Robin.

This track is nothing like the other, much of it is flooded and very muddy underfoot, this is what we're looking for; a 'real' track. We log hop through the water, using roots and wood slabs as stepping stones, clambering up and over fallen logs covered in slippery mosses and lichens trying to keep our boots and bums dry. It takes a few detours to make our way through and a couple of times we have to retrace our steps to find a alternate route, always keeping those orange triangles in view.

This is also ideal territory for a range of weird and wacky fungi although I don't find any of the pink and purple variety this time.

We finally reach the old tramline which is still wide and clear through the regenerating bush. This 1920s tramline was used to transport logs from the forest down to the Dart River. We pass over many of the old support battens laid across the track...

...and find a couple of relics from the trams. This part of the circuit certainly makes up for the first section.

And one last photo of a very cheeky robin who frightened the life out of me. I was crouching down to take that photo of the platform across the bay, framing the photo with the overhead branches and trying to get the mountains behind in the shot when I hear a rustling right beside my left ear and caught sight of movement. I jumped back with a start. Thank God it was a robin and not a rat, he was on the branch right beside my head peering over my shoulder. I had to step back to get him in the frame. I scraped aside the leaf litter as a reward for his(or her) over friendliness. 

Road Trip to Kinloch

Back to catch up on the blog posts from our time in Glenorchy. Glenorchy is a small settlement at the top of Lake Wakatipu, 46kms from the bustling metropolis of Queenstown. It's the gateway to the Rees and Dart River Valleys and  the famous 'Great Walk', the Routeburn Track which finishes just over the 'hill' on the Milford Road at the Divide, the last downhill section of the track being the Key Summit Walk which we did when we were over that way. There are also a number of other multi-day tramping tracks in the mountains at the head of the lake.

We had two fine days out of six while we were in Glenorchy, so as soon as it cleared we were off to explore, to the end of the road on the south side of the lake. Kinloch is just a small settlement and even though it's just across the water from Glenorchy as the crow flies, it's 27kms by road, half of them gravel. The road crosses over the wide Rees & Dart braided rivers before heading up the lake towards Kinloch. These are the Richardson Mountains which form a beautiful backdrop to Glenorchy which is hidden in the far-away willows to the right.

On the road out of Glenorchy we have our first stop of the day to shoot one of my favourite subjects, abandoned farmhouses. It must have been very cold living here, it was late morning and the sun was about to disappear behind the mountain range for the day.

Historic Kinloch Lodge, brought to life by Captain Richard Bryant in 1868, has a long association with the tourist industry. Before the road from Queenstown to Glenorchy was finished in the 1970s, tourists would travel to the head of the lake by steamship and stay at Kinloch Lodge before being transferred by horse or buggies, open topped cars and later the Bryant family buses (more on them later), to walk the Routeburn. 

Across the road from the lodge is a DOC campground, I was keen to see if it was suitable for us to bring the 5th-wheeler to if we came back to the area. It's in a lovely position but with all the recent rain it was very boggy. The enterprising lodge offered hot showers for campers which is a great idea, although a little on the pricey side at $10. But I suppose those in sleeper vans who have been in the area for awhile would appreciate a nice long hot shower and afterwards they could partake in a coffee or lunch at the restaurant too. 

The Lodge still hosts guests in the house and also has a backpackers lodge and rooms nearby.

And one more of the Lodge; restored in 2000, it's a great example of our early settler architecture. 

The road to Kinloch was gravel and a little narrow towards the end but still fine for larger rigs. The next 12km section from Kinloch to the end of the road at Greenstone Valley is a 'backcountry' road with half a dozen fords and not suitable for anything larger than a small campervan...

...or grader! The only other vehicle we saw on the road. 

But once out of the bush, the road is standard gravel with a few cattlestops to cross. The views are magnificent out across Lake Wakatipu.

One more cattlestop, a whole heap of sheep poo and some barking dogs in the distance indicated that we were getting close to Greenstone Station. The sheep were being rounded up into a paddock beside the woolshed on the small peninsula ahead of us.

We pass the Station and turn inland, ahead of us is the Caples River...

...and another DOC campground which is at the trailheads of the well known Caples & Greenstone Tracks.

Actually it's the trailhead and/or end, or both depending whether you do the tramp as a loop or join them from the Routeburn. Or even better still, from our favourite Mavora Lakes! It's hard to imagine that just over the mountains from here are the Mavora Lakes which are also part of the route for the Te Araroa Walkway, the mega walk from the top of the North Island to the bottom of the South.

We walk a short distance to the swingbridge over the Caples River, the first one we've seen (and we've seen a few) with a support in the middle.

As we're walking through the beech forest, a large bird swoops from behind, down over our heads and up into the branches nearby. It's dark in the forest but we're both pretty sure it's a native NZ Falcon/ Kārearea and sure enough it dived again and then flew from tree to tree as we walked along. It was mostly just a dark shadow, but we catch sight of the feather patterns as it's watches us and then flies again. Checking to see who is in his/her territory. I bit like the falcon we saw on the Catlins River walk.

As we near the bridge I can hear the nearby Rifleman/Tītipounamu going to town, they are aware of it too. It flies out into the open and up into the high outer branches of a beech tree and sits there for a good couple of minutes surveying its patch. I manage to find a tiny gap in the branches and zoom in on it. 

Finally, it swooped down over the river and up into the trees on the other side- left to right. David fails to locate it again with the binoculars but it's lovely treat to see, and we'll be able to pass on it's location to the Falcon Conservation group. 

Our sightings are mounting up as we travel the country and in fact we've seen three in the space of a few days; this one, one high above the Top10 campground at Arthurs Point in Queenstown and one here at the canals- that one was a great surprise. It swept through from the bridge past the vans at mid door height with a dirty great rat in it's talons! 

We head back to the carpark where I take this lovely shot as the cloud roll in, we sit on the tailgate and have a late lunch. Yet another stunning lunch break; dozens of Bellbirds/Korimako are having a singing contest nearby, yet it's still very peaceful surrounded by beautiful scenery and sitting in the warm sun.

Then it's back along the road, through Kinloch, past the grader who's coming up the other side this time. We give him a cheery wave and he stops to have a chinwag with us. We see him a couple more times before we leave Glenorchy, he's grading all the back roads after the summer influx.

I'm hoping someone can tell me which peak this is, part of the Richardson Mountains behind Glenorchy. I'm guessing, but I wonder if it's Black Peak. I like the wisp of smoke down below, gives it some perspective- ETA, Thanks Melanie from Tauranga (see comments below), it's Temple Peak.

With a couple of hours of daylight left we decide to head up the Routeburn Road to check out a walk we'll do to Lake Sylvan on the next fine day.

It's not long before we come across a large flock of sheep wandering and running up and down and back and forward across the road looking quite stressed as cars and motorhomes push past in both directions. There's no shepherd or dogs about, and no open gates so we're not too sure why they're on quite such a busy road for the area. Perhaps they're grazing the long acre.

We stop at Weka Flat for a cup of tea as the sun drops down behind the mountains. A very cute and confiding South Island Bush Robin/Toutouwai pops up beside us willing us to scrape aside some leaf litter for him.

We weren't going to go as far as the end of the road, to the Routeburn carpark and track start but as it was only just up the road we thought we might as well. Just in case. Just in case we didn't make it back to do the short walk along the Routeburn River. I don't like doing this (but can't help myself) because usually it works out that we don't make it back later (as was going to be the case here) or we preempt the experience. 

We have been to the Routeburn a very long time ago. We did a day walk up to the Routeburn Falls with a small tour group. Neither of us can remember much about it other than it nearly killed David on the climb up and me on the walk back down along the Routeburn Flats when our guide said 'don't stand on a slippery log' as we crossed a stream, and I promptly did and very nearly impaled myself on the jagged branch sticking up as I slipped, hit the log and fell into the stream. 

I had to hobble back to the van, cold, wet and sore. And when I got back to our hotel and took my trousers off, my leg, from ankle to arse was bright blue! A huge bruise where the branch had scraped up it. It wasn't until I looked closer that I realised that most of the blue was dye from my wet trousers! Thank God for that, although a large bruise did appear the next day. 

Back then this was the only shelter at the carpark with the swingbridge nearby, it's now a day shelter/picnic area and the bridge has been moved further down the river. 

And this is the flash new information shelter and toilet block.

There are a number of large panels with lots of useful information about the history of the Routeburn, what to expect from the walk, maps and mountain information and native birds you could see along the way. It was great to see a familiar sight in amongst the history; the Bryant buses, that were used to carry visitors from Kinloch Lodge to the track. These are the same buses that we've had the pleasure of riding in on both our visits to the Arrowtown Autumn Rally. 

We headed back down the road where the sheep were still causing problems. It's amazing how people, and I'd say most of them would be overseas drivers, react to the unusual (for them) sight of a flock of sheep on the road. Some stop dead, others speed through, sheep flying out either side as they make a dash for safety, some toot their horn, others swerve all over the road trying to get past the ones running ahead of their car. 

The poor sheep were puffing and panting and trying to break through fences into the paddocks. We still didn't see a farmer although we passed a farm vehicle turning into the road so hopefully he did something about it or alerted someone to the problem. If they were let out on purpose to graze the roadside, it's wasn't that great an idea.

We headed back over the Dart River, along the base Mt Alfred/Ari which separates the two river valleys, back over the Rees River, along the bottom of the Richardson Mountains and...

...home to 'Out There', parked safely along side the Glenorchy Hotel.

This might be the last blog for awhile, we're on the move again. The sun is shining, the snow is low and the forecast is for fine weather for the next few days so we're heading off to West Coast, exploring Haast Pass along the way. 

And that big salmon with David's name on it? It managed to live to see another day- he hooked it last night and it put up a good fight for five minutes or so before it broke free. I think David was secretly happy about that, he just can't shake his 'catch & release' philosophy.