On March 2, we said goodbye to my son Bryan and hello to our good friends Ray & Mary. I have known Ray since we were both on the same dorm floor at UC Berkeley in 1976. They flew down from Auckland, having been vacationing there for a bit with Ray’s son Mike and his wife and child.
Our first outing was a day trip to Arrowtown and a hike up the river gorge. Peggy and I had been to Arrowtown earlier and had been looking for an excuse to go back. It is a cute little town, built quickly during the gold-rush in the 1860s.
You can still see people panning for gold every day in the river. They say you can do pretty well on a day after a really big rain. We decided to stay on the trail and leave the hard work of panning to younger folk. 😉
The next day was wine tasting in Gibbston Valley, one of the more famous wine areas of the South Island.
We stopped at Gibbston Valley Winery (above) and Peregrine. Both were nice, but I liked the smaller and more personal touch at Peregrine. Gibbston Winery is a big winery, by NZ standards, making far more wine each year than Peregrine. They have a rather busy high-end restaurant and many guests and tour busses going through. At Peregrine, its mostly a family run operation and we only saw one other couple tasting while we were there. The host spent quite a bit of time with us, telling us about the history, their wine making process and everything that differentiates them from the others.
As so often in NZ, we liked the white wines, especially the sauv blanc, better than the reds. However, we did buy an 8-year old Pinot Noir at Peregrine that was very good.
The next day was a travel day back down to Lake Te Anau. Ray & Mary did the Glow Worm caves that same day and they did a cruise on Milford Sound the next. Since Peggy and I had already done both, we took some time to relax and enjoy the area around the lake.
March 6 we drove to Lake Manapouri to start an overnight cruise on Doubtful Sound. We arrived early and had a very nice walk along the lake shore on a wooded trail with many birds and great views of the lake.
It turns out that the “Environmental Movement” in NZ got its start around Lake Manapouri. Back in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, after the hydro-electric plant had been built (see previous post) and it was under-performing, a group of “industrialists” had a plan to raise the water level of the lake by 30 meters to increase the hydro power. This would have flooded thousands of acres of farmland and connected Lake Manapouri to Lake Te Anau, raising its water level by 6 meters. They had even signed a contract with an energy company controlled by some of the largest Australian, British and American multi national companies, giving it control of the lakes and hydro power generation. When the public heard about this, a movement started that eventually gathered signatures from 10% of the population and resulted in the incumbent government losing the national election by a landslide. See the link above is you want the full story. It’s worth a read.
The result was that a ‘Guardian Commission’ was setup to protect the lakes and surrounding area. It had huge power and became a model for how NZ could protect its natural heritage and continues to be important today.
On Doubtful Sound, we did an overnight cruise on The Navigator, which is a small luxury boat with about 60 passengers on board.
The naturalist, Dev, was frequently on the intercom, telling us about the formation the Fjordland area, the climate, the plants and animals, and the Maori and European histories in the area. Learning about what makes an area special is always important to us and we really appreciated hearing from Dev.
There was lots to do, including kayaking and swimming. I was not feeling great so I took a pass, but Peggy, Ray and Mary all went for the kayaking!
We also had a pod of dolphins entertaining us, diving and spinning around the ship for quite a while that evening.
That evening there was a wonderful buffet dinner with tons of great food. Nobody went hungry! Then we dropped anchor for the night in a very calm arm of the sound and slept very well.
After a beautiful sunrise and a great breakfast, the cruise explored more arms of the sound, where we saw steep cliffs, waterfalls and gorgeous scenery in all directions.
But, eventually, we were back on land and heading north, back to QueensTown. We had a great dinner in town and went to bed after a long day.
The next post will take us out to the west coast, across to the east coast, whale watching and more!
It’s wonderful you two could share New Zealand with Ray and Mary.