Dunedin: Easter Holiday, April 2019

19 Fri-
Our Easter holiday started with a stopover at McDonalds in Omaru, en-route to Mt Cook / the Hooker Valley track. Once there though we found it was closed off! We walked to Kea Point instead. The weather was really beautiful. It would have been perfect for a nice long walk. At the visitor center I found out the walk was closed due to the west coast storm from a month ago that hit the region badly. In this case it damaged the track and even jeopardised the swing bridges. Such a shame.

Next we drove towards Lake Tekapo and visited its observatory on the hill. It was $8 entrance fee for parking but it was something we missed out on before. The views were nice. The observatory itself wasn't open for tourists though. There was just a cafe open.

views from the top

Lake Tekapo town in the background

More views from the top

More views from the top

The cottage we stayed in at Lake Tekapo was nice, it was a 1 bed studio but very good. We inquired at the hot springs in town for something to do tomorrow. We got captured on the google street view car too. It was the car in front of us at the town center, and then again at the entrance to the hot springs. If you want to get a feel for what it was like on the day, with the glorious sunshine, follow the link at: Google Street View This link works 20/07/20. It should show as April 2019.

20 Sat-
Today we simply went to the hot springs. It was actually okay. It had two saunas and about 3 decent sized hot pools. Well, more like warm pools, but it was still nice. We stayed from 10:00am until gone 2pm. Firstly though the cafe/ reception area had a spread of food out for its guests as they were officially revealing their new range of locally blended coffee. The spread had decent cheese with crackers, sandwiches and orange juice.

Stock photo

21 Sun-
We packed and left by 8:30am. We drove up to Christchurch to have a stop over at Samurai Bowl, a ramen restaurant. We went there before and loved it. The same today too. Everything else around was closed as its Easter Sunday. Next we drove onwards to Maruia Springs, arriving around 3pm. Things hadn't changed much, other than the hottest outside pool now has a mosquito net covering it. We booked ourselves in for the dinner. I had Lamb chops which was nice, Sabine had roast duck which I tasted and was also nice. I had the cheese board afterwards and Sabine had the Pumpkin Pie.

My Lamb dinner

Sabines Duck dinner

Sabines Pumpkin Pie

My cheese board

22 Mon-
We woke up at 5:30am to enjoy the baths. The breakfast was okay, but not as good as Christmas 2017.

We left at 9am. We had a few pit stops driving south to Wanaka, arriving at 6pm. A 9 hour drive pretty much.
The place is very nice indeed. very spacious. I phoned Grandma this evening.

Driving south

23 Tues-
We had a lie in. We eventually went to Puzzle World for an hour. Sabine thought it was shit so we left. Its catered more for kids to be honest, and we still saw everything and did the outside maze. But I guess we could have paced ourselves because we did nothing this afternoon.

The maze at Puzzle World

We eventually went to town and ate a huge pizza though. This place makes their own garlic bread too, just like a fresh bread loaf.

Stock photo of their Garlic Loaf. This was huge for only a starter!

Sabines veg pizza

My half/half pizza

I looked at the stars tonight again from the back garden. They were incredibly clear and bright. I got a little weirded out when I saw a red light darting about the sky. Sabine came out and told me it was just a drone. She was right.

24 Wed-
We drove into the Haast Pass, revisiting the Blue Pools, Fantail Falls and Thunder Creek Falls. The weather was nice again.

Sabine had an interview with an industry in Italy. I had to be in the same room as her, just out of view and deadly silent so not to disturb her. Godddd what an awful interview! Such harsh, unjustified questions! We went out to the pizza restaurant as yesterday (Its called The Cow) and laughed it off.

25 Thu-
We hung out in Wanaka this morning, then headed down to Te Anau.

The drive down, before Arrowtown

We tried to go to Arrowtown but there was absolutely no parking. Way too touristy. Such a shame.
The weather was glorious too.

We bought a lunch and ate it at a picnic area we had to ourselves by Lake Wakatipu near the road (but not really) that heads south.

Not bad for a picnic area hu?

Back on the road again

The weather at Te Anau was crap and stayed that way for the rest of the day. Nothing was open as its ANZAC day. But one pub was. We ate here for both lunch and dinner. Our AirBnB is massive. Its a three bed bungalow all to ourselves.

26 Fri-
Sabine booked us on a boat trip today, from Manapouri across on a boat to the other side of Lake Manapouri, and from there on a bus journey to Doubtful Sound, where we had another boat trip to the Tasman Sea, and finally back again the same way. It was pretty good, and a long day.
We ate dinner at Te Anau but it was a bit meh.

Doubtful Sound river mouth

Doubtful Sound

We packed after watching tonights anime. Early start tomorrow.

27 Sat-
Today we packed early and left for Milford Sound at 6am. We arrived at 8:30am and had a breakfast bun each. Our boat left on time at 9:30am. Going along, it stopped close to a waterfall. The crew placed a trey of cup glasses on the Bow of the boat, and let the waterfall fill them up. That was fun. On the way back it stopped at another waterfall and got us wet. That was the waterfall that dad got a decent photograph of back in the day, which was framed and on my bedroom wall for years.

 

The car journey back to Dunedin was okay. We left at 12pm and was stuck behind a camper-van that refused to let people pass by, but other than that it was fine. We were back home at 6pm, and got a Chinese takeaway.