A Remarkable View

Catch-up; we're still parked up in Winton with the family. We've been here a little longer than expected (4 weeks today) and winter has finally caught up with us with a very cold Antarctic blast blowing through the deep south this afternoon. I'm looking forward to seeing some snow soon, either here on the ground or when we eventually hit the road again. In the meantime thank God for diesel heaters and the family's power point; the electric blankets are heaven on a cold night. 

We've visited Queenstown at least a dozen times during the last few years and have managed to explore much of the surrounding countryside. But there's one road that we hadn't driven up; it's either been closed, the cloud has been too low, chains were required or we've just been too busy exploring elsewhere.

The Kawarau River outlet leaves Lake Wakatipu at Frankton with Peninsula Hill behind

While we were waiting for the family to arrive the next day we decided to finally check out The Remarkables Road, a 14km ski field access road that zig-zags its way up the side of the dramatic mountain range that forms a stunning backdrop to Queenstown.

Before we get to the access road though, we have to fight our way through the permanent traffic jam that passes by the airport and a shopping centre in Frankton. Next we join the queue to cross the single lane bridge over the Kawarau River, an inconvenience that will be a thing of the past by late next year.

State Highway 6 is the main route south from the centre of the South Island and it's always a bottleneck here at the bridge and especially during the ski season with skiers moving between town and the ski field. We'll see if it makes any difference to the traffic jams around Frankton in due course. I fear not as more and more planes bring in more and more tourists.

Anyway, back to the road. The views, as you climb, are absolutely stunning and it's hard not to stop at every corner to take them in. This is only a couple of kilometres up the road- you can see it weaving through the centre of the photo below- we're looking south down the Kingston arm of the S shaped Lake Wakatipu, with the Remarkables on the left and Cecil Peak across the water on the right, Bayonet Peaks are to the left of Cecil Peak and the exclusive development of Jacks Point is front and centre (click on the photos to enlarge).

The next stop is overlooking the Shotover River delta where it joins the Kawarau River directly below us and out of sight. The Lower Shotover Bridge on the main highway can be see centre right, with Morven Hill centre and some of Coronet Peak at the back right. The Wastewater Plant's settling ponds are also at the centre.

If you don't know Queenstown and were wondering what the perfectly formed terraces were in the above photo, they are reclaimed land at the end of the airport runway. That's the Frankton Arm of Lake Wakatipu, with Queenstown proper hidden in the shadows down the right hand side of the arm.

We climb higher and stop again, this time looking to the right with Lake Hayes taking centre stage. The Kawarau River flows out of sight to the right and off towards the Kawarau Gorge. And at the far back centre of the basin and again partly in the shade, is Arrowtown. Part of the Crown Range is on the right.

Here's a pano of the Wakatipu Basin with the road we're following below us. Can you see the cyclist coming into view- phew, now that would be hard work! Excuse the sun flare, I'm looking straight into the sun.

I wonder if you spotted the plane in the photo, two above? Just above the top bend in the river? It's a Jetstar plane and this will be the same company & time slot that brings David's daughter in from Auckland tomorrow. He had the not so bright idea of sending me to take a photo of it arriving tomorrow afternoon, now I tell him we'll use this one and pretend it was her plane! 

And look at those houses in the Lake Hayes Estate. They remind me of the song 'Little Boxes'-

Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky
Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes all the same

Checking out Queenstown airport from above is very popular with sightseers and plane spotters alike because you're able to drive up the surrounding mountain roads and watch planes come in below you. The other viewpoint is near the top of the Crown Range, there the planes fly over the top of the range and then drop down in front of you and fly along the river corridor to the runway.

Here's the Lake Hayes Estate again, it's no wonder the main highway is so busy, there are roundabouts on the highway and the entrance roads lead off out of sight. The houses can't be seen as they sit lower down on the river terraces.

It's hard to imagine that it takes 14kms to reach the ski field which sits at 1280 metres above sea level. There are far too many switchbacks to count, and care must be taken, as much of the road has sheer drop-offs without railing. It's just as well 11kms of the road are sealed because once we hit the gravel, the road is diabolical, it's one continuous strip of deep corrugations and many potholes. David is not a happy chap.

But we've come so far so we must carry on (although David doesn't think so), and by the time we reach the carpark, we've had enough of bouncing about and don't feel like exploring any further....which means I can't bring you a stunning photo of the new Base Building!

We head back down, weaving all over the road and at varying speeds, as David tries to miss the potholes and ride over the top of the corrugations. If anyone saw us I'm sure they'd think the driver was drunk! We pull onto a newly flattened mound near the road and on the edge of a huge drop-off, it's seems too small to be a carpark, perhaps it'll be an area to fit chains although it seems a little high for that and they'll definitely need to put a barrier around the outside.

Across the valley in amongst the trees is Arrow Junction and nearby is the zig-zags of the Crown Range Road which crosses the range and passes through the Cardrona Valley to Wanaka, an hour away. 

The switchbacks take you up and across farmland on the Crown Range Plateau. here you can see the road cutting across the plateau and then start to climb through the range. The other lookout to watch planes from, is on that flat area just before the road heads inland. 

From the edge of our lookout I can see the road weaving down below us. To give it some perspective I waited until a car came into view, can you see it? Across at the back of the Basin, the sun is now shining on the autumnal coloured trees on the slopes behind Arrowtown.

Further on and Lake Wakatipu and Queenstown are ahead of us now, with Walter Peak across the lake, centre left. We have one more stop, there's a knoll ahead of us (and people standing on it) which has another great lookout over the airport. 

I leave David scanning for planes...

And join a couple of family groups on the knoll who are also checking out the planes and views below... 

It's not long before another plane heads in, this time one from Air New Zealand.

In between planes I take more photos of the views, this one is looking south again, towards the Kingston end of the lake. It's a lot higher this time, you can see the beginning of the road switching back and forward as it climbs the lower slopes. 

We watch a plane departing...

...and I take one last photo, a zoomed in shot of Lake Hayes before we head back to Arthurs Point and home...

 ...back through a traffic jammed Queenstown. Where else in the world could you see the surreal sight of paragliders floating down from above while you're fighting rush hour traffic through a busy city centre?

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. 

The Famous Skippers Road - Part 2

Continued on from Part 1

Once across the Skippers Suspension Bridge, the road narrowed as we followed it up a few sharp switchbacks before arriving out on an open plateau.

We pulled in near the information shelter and decided to have lunch there while we were at it...

...rather than across the valley at the remnants of the Skippers township. A car containing a large family had passed us at the bridge, and now had the only picnic table in the sun (if you don't count another one that had collapsed). The sun shone brightly on the autumn gold of an exotic tree near the homestead, contrasting spectacularly with dead wilding pines that surrounded the settlement.

Plus, I wanted to check out the Skippers Cemetery before we drove over to the other side. 

A picket and stone fence surrounds the cemetery which contains about 20 headstones and the marked graves of early Skippers residents.  

There are many unmarked and unidentified graves too. 

The cemetery overlooks the Skippers Canyon, a fitting resting place for the hardy pioneers of this remote settlement.

Across the canyon, just above the sheer cliffs, another road cuts around the side of the mountain, it leaves the Skippers Road not far before the bridge. Branches Road provides access to the huge and isolated 45,000ha high country Branches Station. The station takes it's name from the many tributaries that form the upper reaches of the Shotover River and is about as remote as they come. With permission experienced trampers can cross through the station, over the Shotover Saddle and into Lake Wanaka's  Matukituki Valley.

On this side of the canyon, a 2-3hr walking track heads past the cemetery and on up Skippers Creek to another old gold mining settlement; Bullendale. The remains of the Bullendale Hotel, the only hotel that was in this area, are along the way. Miners from Skippers, and further down the Shotover, had a fair hike to the pub after a days' work.

We gave Bullendale a miss and headed over the valley to Skippers where the historic Skippers Point School still stands proud and grand...

And looking just a little out of place in this faraway place...

After the school closed in 1927, it became a woolshed and then it was left derelict for over 20 years. In 1992 it was restored by the Department of Conservation, inside and out and visitors are free to wander at their leisure.

We both noticed how chilly it was indoors behind the thick stone exterior. I guess with a fire going on school days, the solid walls would have kept the heat inside, which is just as well because I'm sure there would have also been days when snow lay thick on the ground outside. 

Skippers was never a mining town in the popular sense, there wasn't a main street lined with hotels and stores. The settlement was spread out across limited flat ground over two terraces. The school and Mt Aurum Homestead were on Burkes Terrace along with a few miners cottages but most of the population were located close to their mining claims along the banks of the river and nearby creeks.

By the 1940s the only permanent residents of Skippers were the owners of Mt Aurum Station. The station homestead has now also been restored. It was very interesting exploring inside both these buildings, with are a good number of information panels explaining the dynamics of the settlement, and the hard life and harsh environment that people lived in along the Shotover River. Winters were especially difficult with snow and ice laying on the ground for weeks at a time with no access along the track back to Queenstown.

The restored miner cottage was still sitting in the sun (or perhaps it was the Station's toolshed, I couldn't quite decide).

Behind the homestead there's a small DOC camp surrounded by very tall dead pines and a warning to watch out in high winds (the wilding pines in this area were sprayed in 2014). There are a number of tramping tracks and huts further on into the 9,100ha Mt Aurum Recreation Reserve, I guess this site provides a stepping stone for trampers and also a site for mountainbikers and visitors with tents or small camper vans who visit Skippers and might want to overnight. 

I think it would be quite an experience camping out in a place that has so much history behind it, perhaps there's a ghost or two that might enjoy the company too. It's a pity 'Out There' wouldn't fit down here.

After exploring the immediate area it was time to head back to civilization. I would have liked to have done the one hour return 'Pleasant Creek Terrace Historic Walk' along the plateau, past some of the sluicing scars we'd seen from the other side of the river as we drove in. But, it was getting late and I still wanted to do a few photo stops on the way home. 

In particular the Skippers Bridge again, now that that there was no one about and I could take my time. 

The family I mentioned earlier were scrambling all over the bridge on the way in- the mother in panic mode as two boys climbed the fence and were standing out on a small rock overlooking the drop off into the river below.

And when they weren't clambering over the bridge they were paddling in the small pool below the nearby Bridal Veil Falls! 

To give them their dues though, they were paddling while retrieving rubbish; bottles and wrappers. 

We stopped at another lookout near Maori Point to look back up the river and over the plateaus. With the sun dropping, the detail across the terraces was highlighted even more, we were also a little higher up at this spot. Here you can see the distinct ridges of the water sluicing pipes and canals snaking across the land both on the terrace in the foreground and the one up behind. I wondered how they managed to get to the plateau in the foreground, it looks like they sluiced their escape route away! 

You can see a small piece of the the river in the bottom left corner. There were a few old rusted mining relics laying on the side of the river down there.

And this looking back towards Skippers, you can see the white of the school building in the centre of the dead trees at the back right. You can also see the other end of terrace with no access, which is in the foreground above. 

And at the centre back, the little cottage I mentioned in 'Part 1' of the Skippers Blog, here, I've zoomed in for you. This is where the one hour return walk from Skippers finished. You can see an information board on the edge of the sluicing scar. At first I thought it was a horse until I cropped it some more! I believe the cottage is privately owned, perhaps by someone that still has a claim nearby.

Anyway, enough of the details, it's time to retrace our tracks. There are still a small number of people living along the Skippers Road, some are still living as the pioneers did, in ramshackle homes with basic amenities, living off the land and probably their gold claims. There are also a few farms and I wonder how they move their stock in and out, probably by droving them. You can see a house and farm buildings near the Pipeline Bungy bridge in the photo below.

It's not long before we're back onto the rock cutting through Pinchers Bluff slowly climbing above the river below...

It's just as scary second time around, but at least David can now see how close he is to the edge and it's now me that's ducking my head as an overhanging rock approaches.

Although when I get out to take some photos, it doesn't look so bad...as long as you don't trip on the soft edging and tumble down the cliff. 

Now I'm hoping we're not going to meet anybody coming the other way.

We make it out safely (ye of little faith), and stop for another breather and a last view down the Shotover Gorge before we turn inland and head up Long Gully. Just imagine if the wildling pines and other exotic plant pests were allowed to take over, these spectacular views would be gone forever.

A tiny miner's hut sits all on it's own not too far up Long Gully. It was in the shade when we came through this morning but is now bathed in the warm glow of the setting sun, making it a perfect subject!

I bet it looks spectacular in the autumn too, when the nearby poplars are a brilliant yellow and the hawthorne bushes are covered in their bright red berries.

There's still a few narrow sections to watch out for...

....and unusual rock formations to see, on our long climb back up the gully. This is the aptly named 'Lighthouse Rock'- it not only looks like a lighthouse but also stands proud near the top of the road and 'guides' us back home.

I manage to take a few shots out the side window, of the dramatic rocky landscape across the gully. There are only so many times I can shout 'Stop!' at my ever patient husband...especially on the homeward bound journey!

But I manage to twist his arm one more time so I can take a last shot of the colours and contours of the tussock covered slopes down the gully.

Then that was it, we crossed back over the cattle-stop and re-joined the hustle & bustle of a busy tourist town so far removed from a little piece of paradise just twenty of so kilometres up the road. There and back along the famous Skippers Road, a thrilling drive and a great journey along an iconic piece of New Zealand's history. A road that has, since 2006, been protected by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust. I hope you enjoyed the ride too.