Dunedin to Te Anau

Wednesday 27.01.10

Today we travelled through part of the Southland making our way from Dunedin towards Te Anau, our next stop. The scenery was one of rolling hills in the distance with sheep scattered about like daisies in the green fields across the plains. Our coffee stop today was in the town of Gore where we met a delightful old gentleman here who greeted us in the usual fashion by asking us how we were, where we came from and where we were going to. He was very chatty told us a bit about the town and then about the experience that he and his wife had had the previous May. They were fast asleep when 2 girls knocked on the door to tell them that their house was on fire. Only 2 rooms remained untouched and the house had been completely refurbished. He was 90 and his wife was 84. We wished him good day and continued on our journey passing through Mossburn, the deer capital of New Zealand and on to Te Anu. The town is larger than I expected and once more we are in accommodation overlooking the lake, how lucky we are.

Thursday 28.01.10
Today we have been to Doubtful Sound on a wild life experience!!

This meant that we travelled by boat, coach and then another boat into Doubtful Sound and out to the Tasman Sea. As yesterday had been such a sunny day we were a little disappointed when we awoke to cloud, but unlike the folk who did the trip yesterday in the good weather and saw no wild life we saw Fur Seals, Fiordland Crested Penguins (which are apparently quite rare) and a group of bottle nose dolphins who very kindly put on a display for us. All worth trading the sun for. Wow, nearly forgot the 'highlight' of the day was a visit to Manapouri Power Station and to do this we had to travel 2km down a spiral access tunnel (in the coach) into the mountain to the turbine machine hall. A marvellous piece of engineering as it was all excavated by hand and dynamite.