Day 8-10 No Internet for Three Days

Day 8 - Slip Slidin' Away

OOPS forgot -- yesterday's images a la Patricia. (day 7) From now on they shall be appropriately marked with credit to Pat.


Before we go on with our comments, a word about accommodations. We, for the past couple of nights, have been staying in private houses that serve kinda like B&B's. Interesting thing is that there is no heat in the bedrooms. Some of the rooms have portable heaters and pretty much all the beds have heated mattress pads (I guess instead of electric blankets) which make them comfortable until you have to get out of them. The bathrooms have heaters which, we have discovered, if you leave them on and leave the door open (each room has its own bathroom) it is not so bad. Are we spoiled or what? It doesn't really ever get excessively cold here so I guess it is all what you get used to.

Mountain Reflections in the Lagoon

Morning Mist - Okarito Lagoon

So on to day 8. Glorious morning. We took a boat ride on the Okarito Lagoon. Birds galore, lighting, mist any photographer would die for. And amazing views of the glaciers, Fox and Franz Joseph, with reflections in the water. White herons, Pied Shags, Oyster Catchers, Spoonbills, Black Swans, lovely.

Franz Joseph Glacier

After breakfast we made our way to the glacier to do a little exploring. We did not get up onto the glacier. For that you need a guide and a kit full of stuff like crampons to climb the ice. We are not climbers, one of us doesn't like going up hill, the other doesn't like going downhill so we go level whenever we can. The glaciers are receding no question.

We stopped at Lake Mathieson for lunch where there were several Pukeko. These are birds with red beaks and blue chests and a white ass--black everywhere else. Always eating, hard to photograph.

Black Swans on the lake

Our travels took us down the coast to The Haast. We stopped at a lodge and took a walk through a temperate rain forest. The sun was setting so the light was perfect. Black swans by the dozens coasting around the lake with autumnal gold foliage as background. We saw Fantail and Bell Bird skittering around the trees above us, all kinds of ferns growing under around and on top of trees. The birds skittered, we clicked and sometimes there was actually a bird in the resulting image!

Lodging tonight was at another B and B. It was a little warmer and a lovely home owned by a woman that does beautiful photography of the local area. Being good board members as we are we left PWP info with her. Look for a rush of members for the organization!!!

Each day we drive further south and, like at home in our winter but opposite, it is getting colder as we go. Not cold mind you, but this morning as we took off the temperature in the car was 9* Celsius and 5* outside with beautiful frost on everything.

Until tomorrow, have a great day whatever day it may be!!!
Day 9 - Autumn Leaves

Glacial Lake (Patricia)  Outside Queenstown

See Left (Patricia) 

We started out in The Haast after a lovely breakfast and drove south towards Queenstown. There were lots of photo opportunities in this beautiful country including a braided river and Pleasant Falls. Without a thought of ruining our lunch we had a mid morning ice cream in Makarora. Lakeside at Wanaka for a picnic lunch in the sun of cheese and veggie sandwiches. Lake Wanaka is very much a tourist town reminding us of the towns in Colorado near the ski resorts. It was quite busy even at the beginning of winter which would be the end of the season for water sports.

Outside Queenstown - Mountain View (Patricia)

Lake Wanea and Lake Wanaka run side by side, so first you ride alongside Wanaka, then Wanea and then back to Wanaka.

The day was filled with a lot of mountain driving, curves and twists and turns and lovely vistas. Just before reaching Queenstown we stopped at an overlook and photographed a field of sheep in the distance, they were really quite still. John, our guide, said "don't you notice the sheep aren't moving?" . Yup - they turned out to be bales of hay. In our defense they were the rolled round bales not the square ones. And there was the OOPS for the day.

On our way to Arrowtown, where we were staying the night, there was a stop for more vista images and at a place that runs Jet Boats down a gorge, but not for us today.

Arrowtown (Patricia)

Then back to Arrowtown with a hillside of autumnal color and took some photos of the mountains in "bloom." Arrowtown is another tourist city in the winter because of the ski areas in the vicinity. Most New Zealand trees are conifers (some native, many brought in) so for much of the country there is very little in the way of colors in their Fall. All the deciduous trees are imports, so colors are rare and nowhere near as bold as we have in the Northeast. This hill of gold is a rarity here.

Some note about traveling as an American with the dollar. Today the New Zealand dollar is about $.80. It used to be 3 to 1. As we shopped and did not buy, it became obvious that a 200 dollar sweater in NZ dollars would have been between 60 and 70 USD several years ago and we might have bought them.

We had a lovely dinner in one of the top restaurants in the country with a lovely bottle of wine and rack of lamb for both of us. It ended a terrific day except for accommodation for the night. They were less than satisfactory, but we were able to watch the Royal Wedding before bundling up (no heat) and going to sleep. Patricia had the main room with the heater, broken mattress pad warmer and leaky windows, Maddi the little room with big bed, working mattress pad heater but socket that would not handle the room heater we were provided. We both paid for Internet but never got it and were quite happy to pack up our kit bags and hit the road the next morning.

Day 10 - Sea Cruise

Left the igloo at 8:45 this morning to head out for the cruise on Doubtful Sound. We had to take a boat on Lake Manapouri to the bus to the three masted schooner we took for an overnight on Doubtful sound.

Lovely boat holding about 80 passengers, several of which were children. Many New Zealanders (they are offered a discount for the trip) but mostly international tourists, even ones from the States.

As we sailed through the fjord, the boat stopped and several people took the tender for a closer look at the shoreline and perhaps some fauna. Maddi was on one tender, Pat stayed on deck. They did see some blue penguins (I suspect blue from the cold water, but probably not) but that was about it. Several people went kayaking and when they were all done, some hardy souls went swimming. We sat in the lounge and played cards. The sunset was beautiful. Dinner was delicious and then it was off to bed, after all it was 9:30, way past our bedtimes.

A very relaxing 24 hours and tomorrow off we go to Dunedin and the crested penguins.