The Southern Lakes - (PART 1)

Blog 21 (PART ONE) - Lakes, backpacker action, wine and the end for a dear old friend! 

Mount Aspiring National Park

To reiterate the last paragraph from blog 20:

"Today we are making the journey inland through the Haast Pass (562m) around the edge of Mount Aspiring National Park to Lake Wanaka where we stay at another homestay B&B - Can the sights before our eyes get any better?" 

This was the last sentence of my last blog and the answer to my question is a definite 'yes'.  

This whole area is called the Southern Lakes District, just west of the heritage region of Central Otego. The Lakes are a place of great natural beauty and we are visiting three of the four main water landscapes over the next two days.  

After visiting Fox Glacier, we take the road south to Haast. 

Haast Pass

Haast Pass Road 1965

We then turn inland on a 80 mile tarmacadam 'snake' along the Haast Pass road. It's twisty and very narrow at times and the horn on Sally was put to good use on several occasions. This pass was eventually opened as a 'sealed' route in 1965 and given the Maori name Tioripatea, meaning 'clear path'. Before then it was only a hiking track used by Maori to bring the West Coast greenstone (Pounamu) across to the lakes and rivers for transport onwards to their villages.

Lake Wanaka

After driving through the pretty one main street small town of Makarora the crossing of the Southern Alps ends in dramatic fashion. Overgrown valleys open up and Lake Wanaka appears and what a stunning sight it is to see. 30 miles long and 1000 feet deep, created by glacier activity. Till 1860 it had a beach all along the lower banks,then an earthquake hit and as usually happens in NZ the land geography changes for ever (till the next time!).

Lake Hawea

Around another bend and suddenly on the left is another scene of equal beauty. Lake Hawea is before us, 20 miles long and even deeper, around 1200 feet. These lakes run side by side for a few miles but with hills in between you actually cannot see both lakes in the same view. 

Wanaka Town

Wanaka Town is the gateway to the Aspiring National Park (as seen in the first picture above), another of NZ's World Heritage areas. We are also on the verge of the winter ski slopes and in the same breath some of the world's finest vineyards. Where else in the world can there be such a diverse combination? The Kiwi Pinot Noir grape variety flourishes at altitude; a visit to a vineyard is planned later to find out more about this global industry that gives us so much pleasure (in moderation of course).  

You notice straight away that you are in a different environment here, a younger one, a more 'backpacking" feel is in the air. I had heard that this region we were about to explore over the next few days is called "the world's first lifestyle reserve". it's certainly got an energy, a certain freedom from restriction to do what you love, carefree is a word that is buzzing around in my head. Ah those days when one was young and parents paid for everything, where have they gone?

The mix of water and mountains at Wanaka

When you get water, mountain valleys, gorges and altitude in Kiwi land you get sport and daring. I aim to find out more, I may be losing the physical ability to run and jump but mentally I am still a youngster at heart! You can stroll around admiring the views or you can push yourself to the limits on adrenaline, its all here. 

Homestay Garden at Wanaka

Today however I was pooped with the visit to the glacier and the driving concentration of the snake drive. It was to be a quiet night at yet another fantastic homestay with lovingly kept gardens, eating a yummy pizza, checking emails and writing up the adventure of yet another day in this wonderful country.

To break us out of our peaceful night, our host at breakfast was looking at a website and proceeded to tell us that there had been 116 minor earthquakes and tremors in 3 days in NZ's two main islands. 

'Cor Blimy', good job that 95% of them are miles under the ground and not noticeable. The older pessimist in me thinks of the 5% that aren't! Is today the day? I cuddle Sally Subaru and once again wash her eyes and face, she is a bit big in the girth to hug.

Cardrona Hotel

We continue south to travel over the Cardrona Pass - Jacky wants to search out some more Lord of the Rings (LOR) locations,they are everywhere it seems. We head towards Arrowtown and Queenstown for a mixture of sport, heritage and wine. The first stop is history - Cardrona and its hotel date back to the Central Otago gold rush days in the 1860's.  The original Landlord here, one James Patteson, served a mixture of his own brew, rather warm and frequently rationed. He continued to do this untill he was 90 years of age. Nobody argued with Jimmy - whatever the state of the beer it was all they had for miles around and sheep sheering or gold panning was thirsty work indeed. You drank what was on offer or went thirsty. Cause any trouble and that's where the rationing came into force.

The twisty Cardrona Pass

We are now at 3000ft and still climbing up this awesome valley to reach the summit another thousand feet higher. Cardrona is the start of the many ski resorts in this region but there is no snow on this late summer day. I may even see my first real field of sheep, Merino country is fast approaching and I wanna see my wooly friends please, I miss them.  We continue to the summit, there is lots of steep grass terrain on both sides but still no sheep!!

Still no sheep!!

I do feel quite at home here; the hills and valleys around me do remind me of parts of the highlands of Scotland (the A9 going North). It is quite nippy but when the sun comes out from behind the clouds it's really warm and the glare on the roads with the rain is blinding at times. Yes rain! - Its one of our first cloudy and wet days, not surprising at this altitude but it is a shame we cannot get a full view of the pass at the summit. 

Gibbston Vinyard

LOR landscapes could not be seen in the clouds so we cut our losses and head down the snake towards the Gibbston Valley vineyard which is east along the Kawarou Gorge road to have some lunch. We also booked in for the tour of the vaults, which was actually a purpose built cave hacked and dynamited into the mountain. The rain was too heavy to get around the outside vines but took some pictures of the vines against the mountain backdrop.

Some wine cellar!

Central Otago wines are predominately good quality pinot gris, pinot noir and sauvignon blonc but the samples I tasted were not quite to my palette. I much prefer an Italian or French Merlot, however, as the wine tasting was part of the tour, I am not going to say No! I am told by the experts here that the northern hemisphere vineyard equivalents to these alpine wines are in the mid Europe Bordeaux region.

The adapted kiwi Pinot Noir grape is probably the only high altitude red grape that is really successful here. It has unusual qualities in the fact that the grape absorbs and retains the sun ray without it bursting in the sharper evening air and retains the growing pattern even in wet and colder conditions.

Further up this valley nearer to the towns of Clyde and Bannockburn is the Perigrine Vinyard. These town names of course remind me further of my homeland. It is therefore unusual that the local main town along highway 8 turning south east is called Cromwell. Now how does that work, you historians out there, is there a relationship between all three places? A bottle of NZ Pinot Noir goes to the best answer with my compliments.

View from Chard Farm Vinyard

The next door neighbour is Chard Farm, this is the highest and furthest vineyard from the sea and commands spectacular views. We took an off road drive for a few hundred yards towards the vines and snapped some photos across the valley.

AJ Hackett Bungy

We turned back west and almost immediately the famous Kawarau River bridge was in our view finder. This is the HQ of AJ Hackett. The bungy was developed and used in 1987. When he jumped off the Eiffel Tower back in 1988 he was the same height after the fall, so the new type of resistant nylon rope obviously worked well. 

Long shot of the bungy gorge

This bridge was the first jump location in the world for commercial bungy. We did not see an actual jump but it all looked a bit scary, especially  when you have to trust a rope and knot and hope the guy
rigging it around your ankles has not popped up the road a few yards for a quick glass of pinot gris! 

It was now mid afternoon and it was time to head to the gold rush historic heritage Arrowtown. Jacky was also looking for the LOR location 'Anduin Ford' which coincidentally was somewhere very close to where the gold rush fever started in 1862. True to form, we hit another town on the day of a big event. This time it was a four day event, the NZ open golf championships! There are three beautiful golf courses here in idyllic settings. The town was certainly busy and parking Sally Subaru was not an easy achievement. 

Maori Jack found gold here

The weather had improved somewhat as we were now at a lower altitude and walking around this town was a real treat. The Arrow River that runs along the edge of main street was our first destination. Maori Jack a sheep shearer found a gold nugget in the river bed here and told somebody (oh dear - big mistake!) and that was that. 

The Chinese Settlement

Within a very short period of time 1500 miners descended and created a shanty town, many of whom were Chinese. They were panning away for years before stocks started to dwindle and Prospectors moved on, many becoming farmers. The Chinese stayed and developed a separate village area (settlement) at the end of the high street. The town grew very quickly and in its heyday, between 1865 - 1885, out of the estimated 8000 miners here the Chinese retrieved 30% of the gold and represented 40% of the Prospector workforce.

The Town in the 20th century had the foresight to retain the great majority of the old buildings and 100 years on, tourism is what keeps this quaint place buzzing. The Chinese settlement has been fully restored and is a 'must see' stop for any visitor.

LOR ford on Arrowtown

Jacky went off searching for her LOR river ford crossing and I sauntered around the main street to look at some fascinating old buildings now turned into shops and eating parlours. There is even a fine old fashioned small cinema that gave town folk in the early days the chance to view the first silent movies that came to NZ. 

Arrow Town main street

I was not feeling too good today (ah bless - thanks) so was glad of a quiet sit down to reflect on what this town would have been like to live in 150 years ago. It must have been hard graft and the chance to let your hair down must have been very welcoming.

Some of the old settler houses

The Museum must rate as one of the finest rural history collections in the whole of NZ. It was fascinating to see the whole past lovingly restored to cover the town's industries, buildings and stories of their residents all under one roof. There is Maori heritage here as well.  Before the gold rush this was originally sheep and wine country and both of those early industries are still successful here today over a century on from the end of the gold fever. The Museum was full of tales (not tails) of sheep farming and the wool trade that flourished here. I have however still to see my fields of sheep. There are 30 million of the woolly winter warmers somewhere but do you think I can find them. Baahaps tomorrow (sorry!).

We had a quiet night in catching up with emails and a bit of clothes washing. I was feeling a lot better so could not refuse a chance to try a glass of some local wine we had purchased earlier. I still however miss my favourite Merlot. I am also missing my friends back home who I share my liking of the red wine with. You know who you are!.. 

STAY WITH ME FOR PART 2 of this Lakeside trip……….(BLOG 22)