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. 

Winter Has Arrived

Real-time

Blog posts will be a little intermittent over the next few weeks as we'll have limited connection as we move through Haast Pass and up the West Coast at a snail's pace. Well, I'm hoping it will be a snail's pace but if the weather is anything like it has been the last three weeks, we'll be through there quicker than we think.  It has rained 14 days out of our last 18; we shift and it rains, we shift and it rains, we shift and it snows! 

You'll recall we went to Moke Lake, south of Queenstown a couple of weeks ago. There we had one fine day out of 5 before we decided to move back to Queenstown to wait for a weather change before heading to Glenorchy. Well, it rained for 3 out of 4 days there, luckily we managed to fit Skippers in before it got too muddy and well before the snow that has now fallen.

The day before a forecast fine day, we left for Glenorchy in the pouring rain so we'd be set to go when the sun came out. Which it did, we had 2 fine days out of 5 there and managed to fit in a trip around the lake to Kinloch and to the end of the road where Greenstone/Caples tramping track leaves from. This is the view across the lake from near Kinloch.

We also managed a trip out to Paradise (LOTR famous now) and a walk around Lake Sylvan while the sun shone. I will do blog posts on our Glenorchy activities soon.

But for most of the time it rained and rained and rained some more. We haven't had to top up our tanks with tap water for a few weeks, collecting it off the roof and awning every wet day. While most of the time it rained, we stayed indoors (power and free wi-fi allowed us both to catch up on computer jobs), we did manage to walk the Glenorchy Lagoon walkway. 

Rees River- Routeburn Valley back left, Rees Valley back right

It was pretty dismal and the rain started again not long after we headed out but it was good to get some fresh air into our lungs albeit cold fresh air.

I wanted to capture the wharf shed in the sun but we didn't get back in time. I just managed to shoot it as the sun was going down here.

Finally, the rain just got too much for us and we headed back to Queenstown.....in the pouring rain! Which meant we didn't get to see any of the beautiful scenery along the lake, there or back.

We were intending to stop at Lake Hayes again for a couple of nights so we could do another road trip that was on our 'to do' list; up the Remarkables ski field road, the one that appears in many of my Queenstown photos, zig-zagging its way up the side of the mountain. But it was torrential rain by the time we drove through the town and we decided that when the rain eventually did stop there was probably going to be a whole lot of snow up there. We'd left our run too late for this trip. Our Indian summer had really come to an end.

After lunch, parked on the edge of a very soggy and miserable Lake Hayes, we carried on through the gorge to Cromwell. And with a howling gale blowing and horizontal rain, we decided it would be more sheltered at the NZMCA Rotary Glen Park, than the more exposed Lowburn just down the road.  Well, it was as miserable as sin there. It rained solid for two whole days, rivers of water flowed through camp, mud coated anything and everything and the cloud and fog pressed down on us in our little hollow. And when there was a break in the cloud we could see the source of the cold; snow on all the nearby ranges. We also decided we're not the only mad buggers 'Out There' either.  

On the third day the sun came out and I'd had enough of Rotary Glen. Did I mention the leaves- great waves of leaves blew across the park with every gust of wind, catching on the fence and then washing over the top, breaking free and tumbling down to gather at the lake edge.

We still had a couple things to do in Cromwell so we shifted to a more settled Lowburn...

...where we had the place to ourselves. Very different to the last few times we've stopped here when it's been bumper to bumper RVs! It was a lovely afternoon- snow all around us, warm sun and calm air...

 ...but look what we awoke to this morning, thick pea soup! A forum friend told me, 'Fog is just clouds too darn lazy to get out of bed' I like it!

It took all morning but eventually the fog rolled back to reveal a reasonable day; it was another couple of hours before it lifted off Cromwell town at the bottom of the lake.

I decided to drive through to Queenstown this afternoon for one last visit before we leave for the West Coast. After all the rain, low cloud and cold temperatures, I wanted to see how much snow had fallen and see if I could get a few photos. I'm please I did, it was lovely to see familiar scenes in a different season. Here's the Crown Range behind Arrowtown- 

Lake Hayes and The Remarkables reflected in an icy pool- we parked here for lunch the other day when it was pouring with rain. We could hardly see the lake.

And this might look familar; the Lower Shotover River with The Remarkables behind... 

I took the same shot 4 weeks ago; there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then.

Upstream, with Coronet Peak on the far left...

And 4four weeks ago, isn't nature a wonderful thing?

And one last photo of Lake Hayes from the other end, looking towards Arrowtown and the Crown Range.

I love the Queenstown area, it's so beautiful with stunning scenery in every direction, it's just a pity it rained so much for us on this, our fourth (or is that 5th?) visit. But still, I managed to squeeze in some great shots and I'm sure we'll be back through here again in the not too distant future. 

It's time to see what the West Coast can throw at us. 

A Quiet & Sunny Easter- Part 1

Famous last words…

Before I catch up-to-date on the blogs from the last week or so I wanted to tell you about our Easter. It’s a two part blog but I won’t keep you waiting tool long for the second installment.

Our visit started off well enough, we arrived at the DOC camp at Lake Kaniere on Tuesday well in advance of any campers coming to stay for the Easter holiday weekend. There's no camping allowed along the foreshore but there's plenty of views from up the back.

We had the place to ourselves the first night, we found an ideal area to set up camp; on the top level overlooking a section of the lake and a picturesque island just off shore. It’s a large camp site with multiple grassed levels with large bushes dividing up the various sections.

The lake is stunning, not a breath of wind to cause a ripple anywhere.

Just a few resident ducks including this female Paradise duck with her mate- they swim away the morning and then waddle up to the top level to graze on the grass and sunbath on the rocks near our van.

A male South Island Tomtit (Miromiro) calls our level and the level below his territory. He spends most of his time fighting his reflection in the car mirror. He does laps of his patch, around and around he flies, from tree to rock to picnic table to mirror to van to another tree and back to the mirror. I think he hopes that intruder will be gone by the time he gets back. Poor boy, another car pulls in and straight away he’s fighting that reflection too. His breast is a beautiful golden colour, he’s getting ready for the breeding season when it’ll turn even more golden. North Island tomtits have white breasts.

Then there are the usual suspects, about half a dozen weka, they wander about scavenging for scraps and calling loudly before scurrying off under the bushes chasing each other.

We do a bit of exploring on Wednesday and David inflates the dinghy later in the afternoon. He’s off fishing Thursday morning…

And catches his first perch which is released after he’s taken a photo. There are also salmon in the lake along with brown & rainbow trout. He has a couple of strikes but isn’t able to land any. He tells me that the lake is very dark, an inky blackness from the tannin stained water and it’s also very deep. Up near the top of the lake it’s also very pretty with flax and reeds reflecting in the still water.

On Friday we go exploring in the boat, right to the top where the reflections are. David trolls along the edges and I relax (as much as you can in a 3.5 metre dinghy).

We pass a bus freedom camping on the lake’s edge, they have an inflatable ready to go too. A little further on we see a person sitting on a large wooden seat & another skimming stones across the smooth water. I know there’s a lodge somewhere up near the top of the lake and wonder if they are from there. We later discover that there’s a short walkway down to the beach from the carpark at Dorothy Falls.

We stop on a beach to have lunch but can’t find a suitable log or rock to sit on and the pesky sandflies are annoying us again so we climb back into the boat and sit on the seats to eat lunch, floating just off shore in the peace and solitude…..until a fizz boat roars by. The sandflies still find us but don’t swarm as much as they do onshore. After lunch we move further down the lake and tie up to a fallen log. Directly behind the bush that fringes the lake is the beautiful Lake Kaniere Walkway (and mountain biking track); a 3.5hr 11km walk that follows the lake edge from top to bottom.

The cloud is closing in on the lake by the time we make our way back to the boat ramp and we can see a lot of activity along the foreshore.

There are now three caravans and their associated gazebos, BBQs and tables set up behind us and the level below us is also filling up fast…..

Ok, well it is Easter after all and this is the last chance many will have of going camping this summer. But it does seem rather busy all the same…..

To be continued……