Milford

Once again we made our way to Te Anau this time though we continued onto the Milford road and down towards the sound. Our intention was to view the great scenery that this acclaimed area of New Zealand has to offer, although we did not intend to go out on a boat into the sound itself. We walked a little of the Routeburn track upto Key Summit and then walked along the Gertrude Valley upto the base of Gertrude's Saddle amongst other short walks, lookouts and points of interest.

We saw lots of Kea birds (flightless and always hungry, we didn't feed any) quite big fells these. The area has tremendous views every where you look. We spent the night in Edlington Valley which although nice had the smelliest drop toilet Sarah had ever had the pleasure of going near, she wretched for half an hour afterwards then crossed her legs for the next 12 hours!

View from Key Summit with a little tarn on the top. This may not look like a long way up but it's high above three separate valleys. Each valley has an individual river that comes from one source but they run in different directions. 

View from Gertrude Valley towards the saddle

Milford Sound when the tide is out. This isn't a view you often see, most images show the tide in.

Kea on the prowl

Fosicking

We've got gold fever look at the real estate we were able to purchase with our prospecting find.

It's not a yellow brick or gold road for those immigrants who traveled the long distances to take part in the 1860's gold rush. The land road you see here wasn't completed until 1965. 

European miners first started in Otago and then moved to the west coast leaving the chinese miners to continue panning for gold. Their accommodation was little more than a tin or wood hut to see them through the extremely cold winters. They were so small Sarah could not lay down in one. The miners general store only closed down in 1926 when the chinese owner died. Recently the New Zealand government, belatedly, apologised to the Chinese miners families for their mistreatment. 

Chinese miners settlement in Arrowtown. 

We managed find the assayers office in town he had to brush the cob webs off the scales (or did he?) as this is what somebody had managed to buy with their finds. 

They are still finding gold now in fact in the office we saw four gold nuggets that had been found as recently as 2013. They were all oddly shaped and worth as much as $20,000 each which does equate to much when you see the work that's needed to extract it. 

“Artiste” at work

Many an hour is spent waiting for Dave taking umpteen photographs of the same thing. He's working hard on his artistic image which now includes, if you look carefully, a toupe called Cyril!

The Catlins and Roaring 40’s

Dunedin was our next stop a once rich gold mining centre. On our first day we visited the Saturday Farmers Market which was a bit of a wash out and rather underwhelming with it much hyped advertising but few stalls. So we had a coffee and let the sun come out and appreciated the architecture which includes this beautiful train station. Sarah once again did a wonderful job with our guided city tour of the historic buildings.

We also visited the Settlers Museum, Ottago Museum and the Dunedin Art Gallery. All of these were free (tight fisted ain't we?) but informative. 

On the last night in Dunedin we added the sleeping awning to the back of the car. Big mistake, Gale force winds, the car nearly took off during the night. We thought we would have to explain why the car had scratches on the roof after it had tipped over. Sarah also had an early morning shower as the rain blew in through the awning! It's not called the 'Roaring Forties' for nothing.

The Catlins are famous for there extreme winds, wild life and Invercargill, the main sheep exporting location in the Southlands. 

We went to Bluff the southern most point in South Island. 

The South Pole may be nearby and warming up but it's still too cold for these Yellow Eyed penguins we watched at Curio Bay. 

This was our second set of penguins as we had seen Blue Penguins nesting in Omarau, courtesy of Deisel Don. Yes they are blue and it's not from the cold, we'll show the pics when we get back. 

Moeraki boulders

Jurassic Park comes to life these boulders form in a similar way to a pearl the rock layers build up around a small piece of debris in this area and after millions of years they form very large circular rocks.

Look what came out of this one!

Unfortunately it did not come with a return label. 

Look at the mess he created. This member of the public rang the DOC to complain about the damage tourist create. 

Dave can learn anything using YouTube.........

Dave claims he can learn anything just by watching it on YouTube. Evidence of this is him "surfing"(the web)

Happy Birthday Grandma 103 years WOW!!!

Grandma have a great birthday and many more. Hope you have relaxing time and plenty of visitors. All our best wishes.

Sarah and Dave
XXXXXXXXX

Mum please let grandma know we have wished her a happy birthday.