Te Anau

Traveling to Te Anau

We travelled along the east coast, turning inland at Balclutha, heading to Gore.  Enroute we stopped at a Victorian homestead/ Mainholm for lunch.  The home, originally built in 1908, was restored in the 1990s and reflects the Victorian heritage of the area.  The meal was a feast.  After lunch we continued on to Te Anau.  On our way we stopped at a small glass art studio of a Swedish couple who had immigrated to New Zealand (another of Kirsten’s surprises): Höglund Art Glass Gallery.  Ola Höglund and Marie Simberg-Hoglund are the artists.  We also stopped at Gore where we visited the Historical Museum, The Eastern Southland Gallery, in an old round station. It focuses on the social history of this area.  Displays include early costumes and textiles, Vctoriana, gold recovery, farming relics and domestic and medical memorabilia.  There is a research center attached with a significant collection of historical books, photographs, and newspapers.  Across the street was a Moonshine museum.  We continued on to Te Anau on Lake Te Anau.

We arrived at our hotel: Distinction Te Anau Hotel & Villa along the shores of Lake Te Anau.  After we settled in we met for an introduction to New Zealand’s largest National Park—Fiordland National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site.  The lecture included many beautiful slides to prepare us for our excursion tomorrow.  Te Anau is the gateway to Fiordland, with 14 fiords. The mountains we crossed range from 6000 to 9000 feet. 

Fiordland National Park

Today we ventured into the Fiordland National Park for the whole day.  We motored along the Wairau River to Manapouri where we boarded a boat to cross the lake. The Kepler Mountains to the north and the Hunter Mountains to the south border the lake. Then we motored along Wilmont Pass Road across the pass whose summit is 2,200 ft. through Fiordland’s temperate rain forest to Doubtful Sound , Patea, where we boarded another boat.  The sound was named by Captain Cook in 1770.   When he saw the narrow entrance, he doubted that he could get his ship in and out safely.  He and his crew were the first Europeans to visit Fiordland.  Doubtful Sound is Fiordland’s second largest and the deepest.  At the sound, we boarded a catamaran for a three-hour cruise, enjoying the scenery, looking for dolphins, fur seals, and the rare, crested penguins.  

On our return to the hotel, we stopped at the Manapoui Power station where, taking advantage of the elevation difference between the pass and the sound, water is turned into power for an aluminum plant to the south.

When we reached the hotel, some of us went to the Glow Worm cave tour.  The north island is noted for their glowworms, but the caves at Te Anau are part of the youngest section of the greater Aurora system (only 12,000 years old).  First we boarded a boat to cross Lake Te Anau.. At the caves, we learned about the life cycle of the glowworm; then we boarded a small boat to travel along the Tunnel Burn stream that flows through the caves.  They were filled with glowworms—a unique and strange sight.