Wednesday 6th February

Haere mei to Waitangi Day!

We left Dunedin just before 10.00am in bright sunshine with just a few feathery clouds high in the sky. As it is a public holiday, we expected the roads to be crowded with city dwellers making an escape to the country, but, no – as you’ll see from the photos, the State Highway 1 was almost empty.

Although Queenstown is to the northwest of Dunedin, you have to travel south to Milton (57km) before turning north – there are just a few hills in the way! This stretch of road is fairly straight so we made good time and pulled in at Milton for fuel. We then learned why there is such a difference in the price of petrol and diesel – road tax as we know it does not exist; petrol price includes a fixed road tax regardless of the vehicle; diesel does not include road tax, but each vehicle has to pay a varying amount per 1000km depending upon its weight. Also in Milton, we saw a sign “Milton Lions Manure stall” with plastic bags of manure stacked up – wonder if there is some fierce local wildlife around??

On the way to Milton, we passed a fence with hundreds of pairs of shoes and boots tied to it and several people standing around chatting. We’ll have to try to find out the significance of this as we saw a few instances on the road some days ago. Anyone out there with any clues?

We joined State Highway (SH)8 4km out of Milton, passing a sign for an elk farm, but saw no sign of elks. There are lots of small farms along this route with mixed livestock – goats, cattle, alpaca and the inevitable sheep. The Scottish influence is still very clear – names like Mt Stuart, John O’Groats, Forsyth, Craigellachie and Dumbarton all along the way. The road hugs the river for most of the way, with craggy mountains on both sides. The hills to the west here are called the Black Umbrella and Umbrella mountains, but as far as we could see, they didn’t look like umbrellas at all, and the ones to the east are the Knobby Range. The road from Roxburgh climbs quite steeply and twists and turns, passing through Gorge Creek which gives you some idea of the scenery. Then you hit an area called Fruitlands where the scenery changes dramatically and, yes, you guessed it, we’re into orchards! As far as the eye can see on the broad flat plain are fields and fields of fruit trees and loads of roadside stalls, and quite large shops, selling cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots and also preserves.

At Alexandra, we stopped to take some photos of a metal bridge where we had to cross the river Clutha (which is the one we’ve followed since Beaumont, 60km north of Milton). The remains of the original bridge are still there too. As we were having a little look around, we got chatting to a couple, Leone and Nigel, with a converted bus. They offered us a cup of tea, so needless to say, we accepted. We spent a lovely half hour chatting – they live in Papamoa, near Tauranga, on the Bay of Plenty in North Island, and are touring around South Island for a couple of months. We got some good hints from them about their area, and about Rotorua and Taupo, where we’ll be in about two weeks time.

SH8 turns northwest at Alexandra, through Clyde (still with the Scottish place names) where the road now runs along the side of the dammed river Clutha forming an extension to Lake Dunstan, as far as Cromwell. You cross the Lake there and pass more fruit outlets and wineries – vines started appearing just before Cromwell and are all around here. (Bannockburn is just to the south but I doubt there were any battles fought there!) After Cromwell the road again becomes much more hilly and winding and there are lots of viewpoints along the way. We stopped at Roaring Meg, with Mt Difficulty to the south, just in time to see some madmen (and women) bodyboarding down the river (we just missed them on the rapids unfortunately) but one had obviously come a cropper and was hanging onto the back of one of the guides some way behind the others. No way am I contemplating that as one of my “adventures”!

Back into the car and on towards Queenstown, we hadn’t gone very far before we had to stop again. This time it was to watch the bungy jumping at Kawarau bridge – you notice I say “watch” – they’re all mad, but there was no shortage of people lining up to have a go.

Further on, past Gibbston more vines, there’s a point where the “Pillars of the Kings” was filmed in Lord of the Rings, but it’s not marked on the road so we missed it. Never mind, on we went again, through more mountainous roads with the Remarkables range of Mountains to the south, then along the shore of the Frankton arm of Lake Wakatipu and finally into Queenstown.

Our motel is nice and centrally located so we can walk everywhere in the town, but it’s also quiet, and has a wonderful view from the front door. We unpacked and had a cup of tea (first things first), I put all the washing through the machines, then we went to the supermarket for stores – just as we got to the door, they closed! Being Waitangi Day, they were closing early! But at a garage opposite, we managed to get milk and cornflakes for the morning so that’s OK. We ate the last of our cold meat and salad for dinner, then watched the Da Vinci Code – a nice lazy night after rather a busy day, even though we’d spent a lot of it in the car.

The weather all the way was bright sunshine, and wherever we stopped, the temperatures were the highest we’ve experienced since we got to NZ, but nice dry heat, not humid at all. It got a little cooler this evening but still shorts and T shirt weather. We’re looking forward to having a lazy morning, then exploring a bit of Queenstown.
Night, Night all.