Quality Hotel Te Anau

... for a walk on the kepler track the other side of the lake where it was sheltered by the mountains and the forests. in the afternoon i went to the cinema to see a film of the fiordlands that was shot from helicopter and took 10yrs to film and then they built a cinema especially to show it in as they didnt hav a cinema for over 200km. it was very good and full of amazing scenary.

... Rings, but come on if you are actually looking out your back window at places where it was filmed you could appreciate the moment. T"he other spaceship was named Skylon and her driver was a lady from the states named Jemma. It would be the first of several encounters we would have with Jemma, all of which were really helpful. It turns out she was from the States and had been debating taking a job in the remote town of Glenorchy. I believe the ...

... of years.<br>We didn't want to head back but there was still more to see.<br>We headed back over the road towards West Arm but this time we went down into the Power station. Basically Lake Manapouri was 1000's of meter above sea level and only a few km's from Deep Cove so by drilling a tunnel between the two and building some turbines you have the equivalent of a 2000m dam, it has recently been expanded.<br>The whole scene is like a James Bond arch enenies secret ...

... that I'm used to seeing from the suburbs of Rochester, or that I wouldn't see at all in Melbourne. No. This is something else, a cloud of stars, gas, and dust with a bluish glow to it that I have never seen before. The Southern Cross and the Magellanic Clouds also sit quietly in the sky, more unmistakable reminders of just where I am, nearly at the bottom of the world. In one of those rare and beautiful moments that only an experience like this can deliver, I know that I will never ...

... catamarran ferry back, seems very choppy for a catamarran on inland (2nd biggest by area) lake. Beers@the moose , Jolly, friendly, slightly racist fisherman said hello. Beers@ the ranch , blues/rock cover band. Mosquito bites: 3 ("sandfly") Transport: Campervan Catamarran ferry Walk Guide propelled chain ferry boat. Wildlife Paradise duck Fantail Glowworm Grey robin Yellow hammer Scaup

... they not closed at 3pm. They do the most delicious pies. We can recommend the steak and pepper, the wild venison, the cornish pasty and the apple pie unreservedly- all at a bargain 5 dollars (less than 2 pounds). Craving our creature comforts after our few days in the bush we buy some Kiwi wine and gleefully discover that the TV lounge is empty. The hostel lends DVDs so we watch the "Flight of the Conchords - Series 1" - too hard to describe but essentially an award ...

... at 917 metres, only 400 metres above the carpark. We would have had splendid views, luckily the rain eased as we arrived at the alpine section so we did get some views. The alpine area was home to sphagnum moss bogs, lichens, alpine flowers, filmy ferns and stunted siver beech trees. We then went on to Howden Hut where we met a number of folk who had just spent the night there (for most it was the last night on the Routeburn Great Walk). We ...

It was still raining and due this and time restraints we (us and bikes) got the bus to Te Anau. It was our first 'party' or 'production line' bus and was OK, nothing like cycling but like most things it would probably have been better if it wasn't raining. We woke up surprised! The rain that yesterday had blanketed the world in cloud and was raining like it could keep it up forever; had stopped! The sky was blue and the bird genuinely singing ...

... us a short slideshow of what the<br>glowworms look like and how they spin their strings of venom and eat<br>bugs. It was really gross to see, which must be why they show it after<br>you've already gone in. I just couldn't wait to leave by now and go to<br>sleep because I had started getting swollen lymph nodes and was feeling<br>super fatiqued, but I wasn't looking forward to our classy<br>accommodations.

... company answered their phones or returned our messages, so we headed off to catch up on email instead.<br><br>As we'd scoped out a couple of internet places in town on our bikes which looked pretty dodgy, we took the car to a backpacker's hostel to try their internet instead. <br><br>This turned into an extremely frustrating hour of typing/shouting at the computers, which had ...