Stewart Island

Our next adventure after the Milford Track hike and spectacular boat ride on Milford sound was a trip to Stewart Island, which is off the southernmost tip of the South Island. We rented a car in Queenstown and drove a couple of hours to Invercargill, where we took a small plane to Stewart Island. We stayed in a funky motel a couple of kilometers from the tiny town on the Island (total population of Stewart Island is 387). We felt like we had arrived at the end of the earth. Stewart Island is the last bit of land before Antartica.

This is the harbor on Stewart Island.


The first day that we were on Stewart Island, we took a boat to Ulva Island, a small island wildlife (bird) refuge off Stewart Isand. A very knowledgeable ranger showed us many difficult to photograph rare birds, such as the South Island Robin and the South Island Saddleback. The ranger is very proud of the fact that rats have been exterminated on Ulva Isalnd and that these rare ground nesting birds (many of which are flightless)are coming back. We have lots of dark pictures of dark brown birds on the dark forest floor.

The next day was brighter, so we did the Stewart Island coast to coast fly-hike-boat adventure. We flew in an even smaller plane to Mason Bay, where we landed (at low tide) on a deserted, wild and spectacular beach.

Our single engine plane on the beach.

The beginning of the hiking trail.


Leaving the beach

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An old farmstead along the way. In the late 1800's a few families settled here to raise sheep. This lasted until the 1940's.


This is a boardwalk at least a kilometer long across a beautiful, but very swampy place.


When the boardwalk ended, it became VERY muddy! (for the last 2 kilometers).



We hiked around 7 miles to a backpacker's hut and then rode a boat back to the main harbor of the island.

After dinner and much scrubbing to remove mud, we were ready for our journey home via Auckland and Los Angeles.


This was a wonderful trip from start to finish. Now we are adjusting to time zones, unpacking and doing laundry and hoping that Spring will come to New England.

Thanks for journeying with us.

Milford Sound

Although we're home now, the blog continues as we post the last sets of pictures. As we travelled through out NZ, the internet connections were sometimes not very good and posting picutres became tedious. Thus, the gaps. It's a great task to do this from home, as I can relive the trip

The Milford Sound weather was crystal clear. This was one time that it didn't matter what the weather is as when it rains, waterfalls sprout everywhere on the Sound. But we were happy with the beautiful weather we had. We again woke to a beautiful view from our room.

When we arrived back in Queeenstown, we rode the cable car to the mountain in town and took this picture of the hang gliders. It was beautiful to see Queenstown finally in the sun.

The next day we left for Stewart Island.

Day 3 and 4 on the Milford Track

As we had suspected the next day dawned foggy in the valley and that helped to turn this into a magnificent day. We didn’t die today, but we did feel like we went to heaven. For as we climbed MacKinnnon Pass, the fog gradually lifted and we were above the fog. It was like magic.

coming up through the fog and then being above it and looking down at the valley with the fog in it.

After 15 zig zags(switchbacks to us) we arrived at the memorial to Mackinnon to be greeted with hot drinks by one of our guides.

Then on to the lunch hut and the high point of the pass.

From our lunch spot we could look back at Pomplona lodge and see the route we had taken. After having been in the bush, we were now in the high alpine tundra, with majestic mountains and glaciers on some of the high peaks. This was a glorious place to be.

looking back up at the pass as we head down to Quinton Lodge.
We thought it might have been easier to have a hang glider to get to Quinton lodge as we could see it from the pass, but we did the conventional thing and walked, seeing beautiful falls along the way and a trail which was engineered with steps so there was no slip sliding around the muddy tracks. We arrived at 3 PM, plenty of time to make the 45 minute walk to Sutherland Falls. These falls are 580 meters high( a meter is a little over 3 1/3 feet). They are magnificent.

Dinner usually was around 6 or 6:30, but this evening it was delayed as we waited for the last of our group to come in. Among the last was Betty, who at 78 was making this trip 41 years after her first tramp on the Milford Track.

The next day was a 13 mile tramp out to Sandfly Point. It was not so glorious as this day, and when we reached the point it had begun to rain. We boarded a boat there and headed to Milford Sound and our last night of the Milford Track trip. It was sad to see this trip coming to an end, but we knew that we had ahead of us a boat ride on Milford Sound.

Milford Track Day 2

This morning the weather looked better, and we didn’t need our rain gear.

A big old beech tree.

We started off and soon came to a side trail to the wetlands. There were beautiful mosses, in these yellows and white and green. And, very exciting, we saw our first patch of blue sky there.

The walk up Clinton River Bed (or the perpendicular valley) is stunning. Mountains on either side, dramatically coming straight down to the valley. This glacial valley has waterfalls coming on both sides. And,the bush is beautiful, with all these crown ferns(there are a zillion different kind of ferns in NZ)A memorable spot was Hidden Lake. But my favorite spot that first day was Prairie Lake with our first glimpse of MacKinnon Pass. If I had seen nothing more on this trip, I would have been convinced that the trip had been worthwhile.

First sighting of MacKinnon Pass.

We arrived at Pompolona Lodge with a room with the most beautiful view up to the Pass. After showering and changing we went to the lounge area where scones with cream were waiting for us. The weather looked like we were going to have a fine time the next day. As we lay in bed that night, we watched the fog roll down the valley. The view from our room.

We've just returned to Auckland and have decent internet, so we'll be posting the rest of the Milford Track and Stewart Island in the next couple of days.

Milford Track day 1 on February 23 We met our fellow travelers in Queenstown and rode a bus to Te Anau followed by a boat ride from TeAnau landing to Glade House dock.

The boat ride to Glade House dock was sunny and beautiful, but we could see that we were heading toward the rain. When we landed, we had to step through some chemicals to make sure we weren’t carrying didymo (rock snot, an invasive alga that clings to rocks and is a big problem in the USA).

From the dock it was a 15 minute walk to Glade House. Our guide Greta led us on a nature walk and identified Gremlin moss (looks like Spanish moss) and bush robins and crown ferns and all sorts of other wonderful plants and birds. The sand flys were hearty and busy. At all the huts, the generator goes off at 10 pm and when it comes on in the morning that is your clue to rise and shine.

Sorry, but the pictures on this post are not all in the correct order. The computer has been giving me fits and at this point I'd rather post it than sit here. We'll correct it in the future.

Who knows what day it is? It’s a wonderful feeling of not quite knowing but really being in the moment and focusing just on the things around you. That is one of the joys of an adventure like this. You are so focused on the activity and taking in your immediate surroundings that you don’t know a lot of what’s happening elsewhere. This was just a glorious biking day. We started off from Franz Joseph Glacier. There were 3 big hills out of town. Jane chose to ride them in the van and Bob chose to ride them on his bike. So, Jane started biking at Fox Glacier and went for a respectable 55 miles. The riding today was on beautiful road, very little traffic. Rain forest on either side, mountains in the distance and then a beautiful beach.

We arrived at Lake Moeraki to a beautiful wilderness lodge. Some from our group kayaked during the afternoon. I took some pictures. That evening we went for a walk after dark to see the glow worms and to see the southern sky. Seeing Orion upside down compared to how one sees it the Northern Hemisphere brought home that we really are on the other side of this ball we call Earth. We learned how to tell south from the southern sky: South is at the intersection of the extension of the Southern Cross and the perpendicular bisecting a line between Proxima Centauri and Alpha Centauri. It was great fun to see the Centauri suns (the obvious destination for our first starship) for the first time. At Lake Moeraki we had our first full scale introduction to sand flies all too similar to our black flies. Just like our black flies, the sand flies LOVE Jane! From Lake Moeraki we travelled to Makorora. We climbed the hill up from the lake to a wonderful view point. We travelled along and then came to another wonderful beach where we saw some dolphins swimming close to the beach. We travelled up the Haast river valley ( with cows in the river bed) to Haast Pass. A long steep pass and it was very hot. We both stopped a few times to try to cool off and to get our heart rates down. Bob waited at the top for Jane and we had a glorious ride down Haast pass to very different country. All of a sudden we were out of the rain forest and into beech and pine forests with sheep grazing in the pastures. After 70 miles we were very happy to reach our funky lodge in Makorara.

From Lake Moeraki we travelled to Makorora. We climbed the hill up from the lake to a wonderful view point. We travelled along and then came to another wonderful beach where we saw some dolphins swimming close to the beach. We travelled up the Haast river valley ( with cows in the river bed) to Haast Pass. A long steep pass and it was very hot. We both stopped a few times to try to cool off and to get our heart rates down. Bob waited at the top for Jane and we had a glorious ride down Haast pass to very different country. All of a sudden we were out of the rain forest and into beech and pine forests with sheep grazing in the pastures.

After 70 miles we were very happy to reach our funky lodge in Makorara.

It was from this beach that we saw dolphins swimming close to shore.

From Makorora we journeyed to Wanaka. This was also a beautiful ride—going along Lake Wanaka and then Lake Hawea and then coming back to Lake Wanaka. Jane’s legs were very tired from the previous day, so she went at a snail’s pace. Bob got to the lodge first and booked a massage for each of us. It helped a lot. At this point we were beginning to realize that this magical tour was soon coming to an end as Claire and Roger, two riders from the U.K., left us in Wanaka to wander on their own.

The next day dawned rainy with forecasts of rain throughout the country. At breakfast the debate was to ride or not. As this was the last day and reputed to be a beautiful ride, it was not an easy decision. As you can imagine, Bob cycled and Jane rode in the van. We stopped in Cadrone at this hotel for coffee. As the rain let up at some points, Jane was regretting her decision, but then it would become heavier and she was thinking that she had had enough experience biking in the rain. There were other hardy souls riding in the rain, some for the whole trip and others for parts of it.

Rose finishing her bike tour with a big smile on her faceand Bob and Phil finishing the ride at the hotel in Queenstown.

Here we are in Queenstown, a tiny town on the edge of a beautiful lake. It’s been cloudy and rainy since we arrived so we’re not really experiencing it at its best, but now the sun is brightening a bit and we’ll ride the gondola to the hill over town and see if we can get a view

We had one last dinner with some of the friends we’d made on the trip and realized that our ride was truly over. The people we’ve met on this trip have been great and we’re hoping to stay in touch. Today we have a final day in Queenstown and then on Monday morning we start on the Milford track. It’s cloudy and wet looking outside, reported to be the same tomorrow. That’s o.k. with us, we’re hoping for clear weather when we go over MacKinnon Pass.