Marahau

We drove in mist and rain but when we arrived here near Abel Tasman Park the temperature was 24 degrees the highest we have had.  Spent the afternoon walking on the sea floor because the tide took out all the water.  We are located in the amazing 360 degree turret circular room at Marahau Lodge.

Sea floor exposed

The map room

Punakaiki

This might mean Pancake in Maori because this place has the Pancake rock formation just down the road. I can see why we need a high wall built across this site because high tide was bashing in today. we also went walking along the Punakaiki River Gorge. Very Spectacular. Those bugs are still around but I think we kept them out with spray. My sleep suffered with hot welts from bites.

Blow Hole

Pan Cakes

Japanese Garden

Hokitika Flotsam

There is so much driftwood on the beach here that you can make a competition out of it. I don't think there are many professional driftwood builders around so the creations are a bit amateur. The black sand adds to the general eerie ambiance as well as the grey sky.

Black Sand

Sculpture

West Coast Wander

We have made it to the West Coast at Bruce Bay.  We took our time stopping at many places.  The dreaded sand fly or midge is the scourge of the west coast.  We have brought the bug cream that we got in the Philipines which has worked ok but you will still get bitten.  Don't linger in a cool shaded spot.  The scenery is spectacular with snow capped peaks split by water falls. We took the Haast Pass road near Mt Aspiring.

Thunder Falls

Clutha River

The Clutha River flows out of Lake Wanaka.  We hired two mountain bikes for four hours at $30 each.  A bit steep but the ride wasn't. Although we did start following the Clutha River downstream which meant we needed to go up at some point.  The riding was tricky with other bikes and pedestrians sharing the narrow track.  As soon as there is any sun here it means instant summer. Today is 21 degrees, I'm looking out at reasonably green hills some of them with snow. They have set the bushfire rating at extreme and declared today a total fire ban. They don't know what hot is.

Wanaka Yacht Club

Clutha River

Aussie Day Anniversary Day

We had so much action yesterday we were calling that our anniversary day. But today is officially it. We have made it to Wanaka. I am blogging from our deck here at the apartment. I can look down the lake and see Mt Aspiring. Just over the way is the Rob Roy. There are four glaciers up above there. We found the Pandora store in town and filled the last place in the bangle with a silver kiwi.

Aussie Day

How can you tell?

What's Cookin?

James Cook has had a lot of stuff named after him but this has to be the pinnacle of his inventory. We have been waiting for days. We have had the window turned to Mt Cook for the whole time. Now at 9:00pm and for the last half hour we are getting the show.  There have been many shots from the couch without even going outside.

Copeland Pass?

From the couch

Summit View

9:10 pm update

Hermitage

This is our most expensive accommodation on this trip. 40 yar ago I was trying to sleep in the backpacker YHA bunks.  All I could think of was scaling the peaks the next day so I did not get much sleep.  The same then as now, in so far as the weather cleared for the trip.  We are gazing out of a picture window at Mt Cook, we have dinner reservations in the Panorama room and a bus took us to the glacier and back.  40 yar ago we had to hitchhike to get here, we slept in bunks and used a communal kitchen to cook snags and potatoes.

Artist at Work

Boating the Tasman

We got close and personal with the ice today.  A howling wind came through during the night with driving rain. It cleared well enough for them to OK our trip which had been put on hold.  Then it all cleared but the wind was still up.  The lake is 5km long, The bergs float to the exit point so travel down the lake for 5km but can move around via the wind.  I had the Gopro out the whole time but my fingers were suffering from the spray.  Put this on your bucket list. In the afternoon we went up the Hooker Valley in rain and hail.  Was this really the same day?

Bergs with Mt Cook

300 Yars old

Glacier Face

Nature

I have posted some flicks featuring lenticular cloud previously from Lord Howe. These ones are triple decker varieties. Also those years back we would spy out the lupines on the side of the track. There are plenty of those at the moment. Just got an update about bad weather for tomorrow and we are supposed to be boating. Did I mention how we saw one of the bergs break in two. The noise was very loud and a wave was sent across the lake with pieces of ice being sent through the outlet.

Broken Berg

Triple Lenticular

Lupines

Iceburg Hunter

I had never seen icebergs before until today. What is the official size of an iceberg? There were bergs as big as houses and as big as your hand.  As the Tasman glacier recedes it has formed a lake.  The terminal moraine forms a wall and holds in the water.  The smaller bergs were on the other side of the exit stream so I couldn't reach them.  As I look out the window here from the Hermitage, Mt Cook is looming large.  I was here some 40 yar ago and was getting ready to climb up to the Copeland Pass. We hired guides, who gave us crampons and ice axes and we clawed our way to the pass.  It was fairly daunting when they turned back and said we just had to go down there and we would find the track to the West Coast.

Good Foot Therapy

High Moraine

Ice Ice Baby

Tekapo Sun

Yesterday the rain today the sun.  Went to the top of the mount John Observatory.  Snow covered peaks were to seen in a 360 view.  The coffee up there took 20 minutes but who cared.  Drove down again and around some of the other lakes like lake Alexandrina.  Had lunch, some champagne and a quick dip in Lake McGregor.  Whiled away 2 hour here.  We could see Mt Cook in the distance.

Lake Tekapo

Mount John

Sleep v Food

We had the best pub meal we've ever had.  The proprietor gets around. He ran the Athelstane House in Queenscliff for years. Also a restaurant in London.  He says the key is to get the best chefs. We had a meat dish all wrapped in bacon as well as chicken which had the pork crackle effect done to it.  The down side is trying to sleep. The first night neon lights lit our room like daytime, he turned them off for us on night two but then the wedding party came in and spent hours trying to get into their rooms.

Photo Sketcher

Akaroa

We drove to Akaroa today. This was the original French settlement and they are trying to keep the French flavor of it. There are still some descendants there.  This is now the port of call for cruise ships since the last earthquake. There were two ships hanging around today. We spent a slow day with lots of photos.

High Vantage

Boat Scene

Relocated Lighthouse

Governor's Bay

Left the rain behind to find a sunny but cool day in Christchurch. We drove around to Governor's Bay on the Banks Peninsula.  Debbie has a newish Samsung G7 so the travel Sim from last year no longer fits.  Plan B is to put it into my phone which it does fit.  The vodaphone network seems a bit dodgy as does this wifi I am using.  Plan C is the offline navigation maps that I downloaded onto my phone. So eventually we made it to this pub.  It is old with much atmosphere and shared toilets.  This area is ancient volcanoes.  The TV adds feature what to do during a tsunami and also earthquakes.

Governor's Bay Hotel

LALALand

You would have to be in lalaland to give this film 10 out of 10. If you are going to have a musical then get singers to fill the main parts rather than actors who can't sing.  Moulin Rouge had actors who couldn't sing but they did a better job than these two.  You would have to go back to Grease for the last great musical.  Went over to the Skyways for a meal.  This place was busy and the food was much better than First&Last. Why do they call it First&Last because the first time you go in there is also your last.

Over Rated

ThunderBirds are Go

These books and TV shows were the stuff of legend and who had ever heard of Supermarionation. I remember watching theses shows as a kid, it was the only space show on TV.  Quiz questions love this show -

What was Lady Penelope's butler called?

What was on her number plate?

What colour was her Rolls?

Who supplied Lady Penelope's voice?

What was Lady Penelope's surname?

You get one point for every correct answer?

Parker

FAB1

Pink

Sylvia Anderson

Creighton-Ward

About 20 pages into this book I found a crazy bookmark. The book was published in 1966 at the time decimal currency arrived. This card showed the coin sizes. On my copy they scratched out the 2'6 

The Gabriel Hounds

This Mary Stewart book was printed in 1967. It's a boys own type of story set in the Middle East long before ISIS ever came along.  Castles being scaled in the dark to find secret passage ways into the old Harem court.  I remember reading her three book series on Merlin. These must have been the next project as they started appearing in the 1970s. This book has many references to Lady Hester Stanhope an English aristocrat who became Queen of the Desert. The price on the back is 95c.

SouthSide Beach

Another new beach for us.  This one is next door to Bells Beach where we rode past during the GVBR.  I made a mental note to come back after the ride.  The tide was going out so we had a very wide beach by the end.  The best views were up the top where the hang gliders take off.

Hang Gliders

South Side

ManMade Beach

We have found a new beach to avoid the south wind.  This is the location where 100 odd trucks of sand were added to a bay beach. It is hard to describe where but is below the bend in Edgewater Dr. There are no car parks as well as no street parking either so you need to find side streets.  There is another set of Pylons for snorkel exploration and the sand is fine and imported from somewhere else.

You Yangs

Beacon Point

Gave the new snorkel masks another go today.  We went to the Jetty Rd quiet beach to snorkel between the pylons.  Boats have been banned here so we were more relaxed and could concentrate on the breathing technique which seems to be more laboured with these masks.  The council in an inane attempt to improve the beach have churned the soft sand into a shell grit shelf.  Some locals said to try Beacon Point which is two spots along past the Dell.  The sand here was perfect as 80 truckloads were dumped and spread at the base of the cliffs. Also has a great view of the You Yangs.

Shell Grit City

Fine Sand Cafe

Bellarine Rail Trail

We have ridden this track a hundred times but I have always kept an eye out for side detours that might show something new.  We explored two meanderings to different waterways. The first was down a dead end that we had ridden years ago but this time we found a walking track to a backwater with lots of pelicans.  The second was through a pine forest with an amazing creek at the bottom.

Helicans

Both Riparian and Arboreal

Suma Park

Captains Courageous

Whilst at the beach a little seaside story could be good reading. Captains Courageous is probably more Epic than most. Rudyard Kipling didn't write too many books but this one is a classic. He writes the Salty Seadogs as talking with accents and that makes hard reading.  What are the best ever fictional character names? Charlie Dickens wrote about "Uriah Heep" which might be number one but in this tale "Disko Troop" has to be the best name anyone has come up with. The book was written in 1897 and has a 50c price tag printed on the cover.

Disko Troop on deck

Cottage Reef

Got to use the SeaView 180s today.  Arrived at the Cottage Reef around 11:00am and the tide was going out and further out as we swam around. It maybe better to try this at a higher tide as there will be more room to swim directly over the reefs. As it was, we only saw one fish but we did not venture out too far due to the buzzing about of speeders with nasty propeller blades.  We saw other  snorkelers who had a float balloon which marked their location. We also need to get used to the new masks. Breathing is different and there was a certain amount of fogging but we can use some soap next time.  We also got out the wet suits which hadn't been used for some years.

Note: Grommet Carnival in the background

Daily DVD

We have seen a DVD each day thanks to the two Hoyts vendors at the supermarket.  It's a bit like a 15 hour flight, by the time you have finished you can't remember which films you have just seen.  For the record they were Jason Bourne, Central Intelligence,The BFG, Mechanic Resurrection, The Duel, Ghostbusters, Marauders, Finding Dory, Hollow Point, The State of Jones, Your Kind of  Traitor, Huntsman Winter War and I.T.  Some of these were B grade including the I.T. film with Pierce Brosnan. This one had some up to date gadgets but it still had that B feel to it.  But for $4 its cheaper than streaming.

Sand Ride

Haven't ridden along the beach for a while.  Time it for 30 minutes before the low tide turns and you will get the best run. We only staggered once close to the surf club at Point Lonsdale. It is the slightly courser sand that you need to look out for and if you weigh a bit more then you will sink in. The ride back via the road is getting quicker.

Point Lonsdale Surf Club