The final part of our New Zealand trip was in the south of the South Island, starting with three nights in Owaka followed by two nights in the Dunedin, both on the east coast, and then a trip to the fjords, including trips on the Doubtful Sound and Milford Sound on the west coast before heading to Queenstown for our flight on to Australia.
The drive from Wanaka to Owaka was very long, very wet, and quite boring. However, it was worth it when we arrived at our accommodation in Owaka. The view from the house was amazing. The lounge area had very big windows which looked out over the garden and across to the ocean.
As we had arrived well before sunset, we decided to take a drive to Nugget Point where there was a light house. However, just before reaching Nugget Point, we stopped at Roaring Bay where there was a sign suggesting we might see yellow- eyed penguins. As we parked up, we could see how the area got its name as we were hit with very gusty winds and lots of rain. We therefore made a hasty retreat back to the car until this had died down a little bit, before we made our way down to the hide. When we got there, there was a warden (from Leominster in UK) who told us that there were only three penguins who may make an appearance, two of whom had a nest with a chick, and the other who was alone. We were also told that the penguins would have been out hunting fish all day to feed themselves up ready for their moult, and to feed up their chick, and that they could return anytime between about 7pm and sometime after dark. We started waiting, and after a bit it was clear that we were going to either wait until a penguin turned up, or it got too dark to see. In the meantime, we tried to keep warm (we didn't), dry (we didn’t) and entertained (which we did by watching a welcome swallow nest where the two parents kept coming back to feed and sit on at the chicks).
After waiting for nearly two hours, one penguin finally made an appearance. It seemed to come from nowhere, appearing just above the waterline on the beach, and took about 10 minutes to walk across the beach, stopping to preen itself every few steps, and then disappeared into the grass, presumably to its nest. We did wait until nearly dark to see if another penguin would make an appearance, especially as there seemed to be some concern that only one of the two of the pair of penguins had been seen recently. However, no more penguins appeared until it was so dark that we could not see.
The next day we took a trip along the Catlins, heading as far south as it is possible to in the South Island, to Slope Point. Along the way we stopped at four or five different sites, stopping to look at various waterfalls, do some walks and have some lunch. We had not seen quite as much wildlife as we had hoped, but after stopping at Slope Point, we went on to one more lighthouse. When walking on the beach around the lighthouse, we saw, in the distance, a sea lion. We could not resist the opportunity of getting a little bit closer, and so walked along the beach to get quite close to the sea line, making sure we stayed at least 10 metres away as requested, but still close enough to get a very good view, and to see the sea lion chasing off some shags that seemed intent on winding him up. By the time we had finished, we were quite a long way along the coast, and had nearly a two hour drive to get back to Owaka.
One of the places that we had passed, but not stopped at, was Cathedral Caves. These two caves are only accessible at low tide, and therefore we had to defer a visit to these until the following day when we were able to better time our arrival. Even then, we were only just in time to visit the second of the two caves, one that was very narrow and went deep into the cliffs, as the tide was coming in very quickly. The other cave seemed to be very difficult to get into as we initially had to climb over loads of rocks to avoid getting our feet wet. However, it turned out that there were two entrances to this cave, and as we discovered on the way out, the other was very easy and completely dry.
To complete our day, we completed our trip to Nugget Point where we saw loads of fur seals playing on the rocks, and then could not resist another visit to try and see the yellow eyed penguins again. We were told that the pair had been seen going out together in the morning, but unfortunately we were not able to see either coming back in the evening.
We then moved on to Dunedin. In hindsight, this was a little out of our way – going north up the east coast when we had been making our way south - but certainly worth it. We had booked a nature boat ride from the peninsula with the hope of seeing seals, albatross and blue penguins. We did see all three, but at the cost of a very bumpy boat ride – enough said about that. The highlight was definitely the blue penguin, which was happily swimming (more like bobbing) beside the boat as we were coming back to the berth.
The sight of the royal albatross flying over the water from the clouds was good, but not as good visit to the albatross centre. Here we went on a tour which took us to a hide overlooking a number of albatross’s nests – most of which had an adult sitting in the chick to keep it warm, while the adults tried to keep cool by opening their large beaks to pant. We also saw a few distant flying albatross. I am not sure how we managed it, but at the end of the tour, the guide asked us and another couple whether we would like to go to another hide which was close to one of the nests. Tough question – of course we did. We were certainly much closer to a nest, and while we were there the adult stood up while the chick – about 3 weeks old – shuffled from underneath the adult and moved round to sit at the front of the adult. After this, the guide suggested the best lookout to see the albatross flying, and we were treated to some close up views of the albatross gliding along the cliff edge looking for some lift to get back to the nests.
As we left Dunedin, we stopped just down the road from our accommodation to walk up Baldwin Street, which is claimed to be the steepest street in the world. I don’t know if it is – but it was certainly hard work walking up – and even harder coming down.
From Dunedin, we headed for Invercargill. The prettiest route would have been back down the coastal road through the Catlins, but as we had already done that road a few times and the weather was again horrible, we took the more direct route – at the expense of this being quite monotonous. We stopped in Invercargill for lunch before moving on to Southlands where we stayed the night in the old staff room of a school in Tuatapere before the timber industry in the area collapsed with the town shrinking and the school closing. Tuatapere is now a base for people walking the Hump Track. We started the track – walking about 3 miles through the cliff top forest and then onto the beach and along the beach and then back again. We had hoped to see some dolphins that were meant to be living in the bay – but didn’t.
One of the highlights in the south is the fjords. We could not decide whether to go to Doubtful Sound or Milford Sound, so in the end did both.
We stayed very close to the starting point for the Doubtful Sound trip - the harbour in Manapouri - where we picked up an early morning boat for a 45 minute cruise along the length of Lake Manapouri, followed by a similar length coach ride over the Wilmot Pass to pick up the main boat on Doubtful Sound. Unfortunately, whilst the weather was ideal for depositing water to be sucked up by the moss on the cliffs which was then released as temporary – but spectacular – waterfalls, it was not ideal for viewing the scenery as most of the mountains were cloaked in clouds and mist with little sun breaking through. There was also a little less in the way of wildlife than we were expecting. We did venture into the Tasmin Sea where we saw lots of fur seals on a rock, but otherwise saw very little wildlife. One of the best bits on the cruise was when all of the ship's systems were switched off - including the engine, the air conditioning and even the coffee machine - so that we could listen to the silence in the middle of the Sound - the only noise being the occasional bird, a waterfall (and one or two people who seemed unable to keep still and quiet). It was then back by the same route – only this time with a bus driver who thought he was a rally driver and wanted to get across the pass as quickly as possible with no stops (although to be fair, the clouds were so low that we would not have seen anything if we had stopped). Overall, we were a like disappointed by our Doubtful Sound trip, mainly due to the weather.
We then drove the sixteen or so miles to Te Anau for our visit the following day to Milford Sound. Our expectations for Milford Sound were not high as the weather forecast was not at all good - but fortunately the weather forecast was wrong as it was perfect! The Milford Sound trip was a bit different from the Doubtful Sounds trip in that there were two hours of coach either side of two hours on the Sound. However, the coach journey was good – made even better as we got front seats – with plenty of stops on the way to look at the mountains, rivers and other views. On the way back, we stopped as many times as on the way out (unlike the Doubtful Sound where the journey back was a bit like a rally), but at different places. The Sound item was magnificent. Again, we did not see much wildlife – a couple of fur seals – but we did get to see quite a few waterfalls and lots of spectacular views of the mountains on each side of the Sound. We did just venture into the Tasmin Sea, but it was very smooth – even I was happy to start up the front of the boat without feeling sea sick!
The following day, the weather was back to being cloudy and rainy. Clearly we had managed one of the relatively few days to visit Milford Sound when the weather was good. With a reported 9m of annual rainfall, getting a dry day seemed to be an exception. One advantage of the rain was that we were treated to a wonderful rainbow over the lake as we left Te Anau and headed on to Queenstown.
Our thought on Queenstown were that it was very windy and that this was the busiest place we had seen in all of New Zealand. We managed to find a place to park, and then walked into the centre of the town beside the lake. It turned out that we probably walked nearly three miles round the peninsula, when we could have walked across the peninsula and saved at least a couple of miles. However, it was a nice walk and we had some nice Vietnamese food for lunch. We then went to our accommodation and got the washing on so we could pack clean clothes for our trip to Australia and then walked back into town – this time taking the short cut – before taking the cable car up the side of the mountain to see Queenstown from above, then had an unusual but lovely pizza with Peking Duck before walking back along the lake in the dark to have our final night in New Zealand.
On our way to the airport, we had a quick visit to Arrowtown, an old gold rush town, had a last look at the lake and then got our flight to Sydney.
Overall and immediate impressions of New Zealand is that it is a beautiful country, with almost all of it looking spectacular, other than a couple of long drives inland in the south of the South Island. It is also a very big country – we had driven over 5000km in our time here and still has missed some bits. We also felt that it was a country that had possibly suffered more than some others from Covid – even though much of our trip was in the school summer holidays, there were a lot of smaller shops and hospitality that were closed, and showed no signs of ever re-opening. There is also quite a lot of infrastructure – such as roads, walkways and viewing platform that were damaged by recent earthquakes and cyclones that are in need of repair – it was not clear where the priorities lay. We had a great time in New Zealand, thought we had seen most of what we wanted to see (although a few more penguins would have been nice), and are now looking forward the the Australian leg of our trip.
