We came south last Saturday. Perhaps we might stay forever. Perhaps we might stay just long enough to walk every track, see every river, cross every fiord and lake; it might come to more or less the same thing.
In lockdown we said, let's just book a block of time in Te Anau and then decide what we're going to do and that's what we did and here we are.
Reasons to love this place:
1.Manapouri on the weekend is just like lockdown.
You can stroll down the middle of the road and remain entirely unmolested by vehicles. Maybe one HiLux or Ranger per hour. There are more come Monday, but still. A world as tranquil as that is a wonderful thing.
2. Manapouri on a weekday is a wonderful thing too.
Stroll down to the cafe which is also the grocery store and the gas station and have outstanding bacon and eggs for breakfast and come back for a second coffee and cheese roll a couple of hours later while you wait to cross Lake Manapouri. Read the books about the history of Fiordland or read the paper, or listen to the excellent country music playing in the background. I just asked Alexa to play it, says the proprietor.
3. Crossing Manapouri with Real Journeys is mighty
Oh hi Fullers so-called Ferries, thereâs a boat outfit in Fiordland that leaves on time, has audible and excellent commentary, has well maintained vessels that are perfectly designed for the purpose, and are a delight to travel. You should maybe think about coming down.
4. Taking the Real Journeys bus from Manapouri Power Station to Doubtful Sound is mightier
Be careful not to listen to the commentary if you don't want to be fascinated by the stories of how they brought in every bit of kit for the power station either by barge across Lake Manapouri or lifted it onto colossal transporters that they backed over this impossibly steep hill. Also zone out unless you want to be inspired to do the 5-days-in-each-direction Dusky Track which sounds like a boggy rain sodden sandfly bitten ordeal and I want to do it tomorrow.
We stop at the top for the view and get a photo of me with a Lion Brown.
4. An overnight cruise of Doubtful Sound is worth it for the cheese scones alone
Seriously these are great cheese scones that greet you just after you've unpacked your bags in your cabin on the Fiordland Navigator and what follows is unbelievably beautiful scenery, magnificent food, a perfect night's sleep in the wilderness, in a fiord.
Also there are sea lions. Also you sail out onto the pitching Tasman Sea and back in past crayfish pots and penguins. Also you get on a tender to glide over to the granite face of this mountain covered in vegetation which is an improbable natural feat in itself. Also there are the scones, baked by the Chilean chef Jorge. How they must eat in Chile.
5. The Routeburn track is open
We didnât get too far, but you can now because it's just reopened. We were just a bit early because that godawful storm last summer that washed away bits of the Milford Road and brought a slip down on a hut barely missing the people inside means that poor Te Anau and poor Fiordland have been doing it hard even before the Covid absolutely poleaxed the tourism and there's a lot to be said about that, but not yet. But now the Milford and the Routeburn tracks are open and they are wonders of the world and you should go there now and also have coffee and a bacon and egg roll at The Sandfly in Te Anau.
Here's what we were still able to get to.
6. The glow worm caves are ethereal
You will be on a Real Journeys boat once more, and once again you will be impressed by how a proper boat service works as you cross lake Te Anau. Also you'll be amused by the commentary. Until now my all time favourite Kiwi this is your-captain-speaking has been an Air NZ flight to Sydney where he came on and said Well we can see land in front of us so we must have done something right.
My new favourite is the young dude on the boat to the glow worm caves who told us that in the event of an emergency in here, there are a few fire extinguishers and that sort of thing.
Also he said:
Be careful with your caps and things if you go up on top, because if something blows off we wonât be turning around to go back and get it unless itâs still attached to the person
Also he explains that if you look up there at the Murchison mountain, thatâs where they rediscovered the Takahe that was thought to be extinct and here are some interesting facts about the Takahe including: it has the flying ability of a brick
And then you'll get there and you will not be able to take photos because it's a cave with glow worms, obvs, but what a wonder of nature, the roar of the water, the geological formations that sparkle with the glow worms and that doesn't at all lose its lustre even after youâve come back to the information center and they shown you a short video that demonstrates to you that with your glow worm what you have is the life cycle of a fly that is, at the stage youâre seeing it above you in the caves, well, a maggot. A maggot up there catching moths, and using its marvelous powers to shine a light and is that not a marvelous testament to the power of marketing? - because just think how many more tickets you can sell to see glow worms than you could to see sparkling maggots.
At the end of its few months hanging on the roof of the cave and devouring moths in frankly gruesome ways, we learn from the video that the Shining maggot/glow worm becomes a fly for three short days, a fly that is unable to eat but is able to copulate and it does that manically for three days and then dies and isn't that just so tragically operatic or possibly a metaphor for the ACT party?
Also in the cave I saw an eel as big as a small dog, but again no photos sorry, although I was able to take these two photos in the information centre and I like their historical vibe with a contemporary pertinence.
7. More Than A Feilding supporter Helen Matthews is right here in Te Anau
At the end of a week figuring out what is going on in Te Anau, the best thing you can do is have coffee with a local who grew up here then lived in Auckland for two decades and has now come back, to explain it all. Also it's always lovely to find a friendly face in a town where you're a stranger. Hello Helen!
8. The Kepler Track is awesome and we haven't even been on it yet
This is what we are doing tomorrow morning and weâll be out on Wednesday. So the newsletter will be taking a break or rather its writer will be, until Friday.
That means, because there will be no newsletter in your inbox for four days, youâll be getting a note letting you know that your subscription has been extended four days at no charge.
And then weâll be right back into the daily diaries because as far as I can see, there is no end to the madness inside our horizon.
So into Radio Silence and the wild blue yonder we go. See you Friday.
