Holiday: Day 26 – To Te Anau!

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5.50am: Welcome to Sunday’s Post! 👍

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Day 26 – Where are we?
(Sunday, 24th November)

8.36am: We said goodbye to Dunedin and got off to an early start this morning as it’s another long drive ahead. In a way, it was a shame to be leaving, as the morning brought with it a gorgeous blue sky here in Dunedin! Never mind! Onwards and (eventually) north-westwards! 👍

With just a week left on our New Zealand adventure, we’re heading to Te Anau, near the National Park. Te Anau (population c3000) is well known as the ‘gateway to Fiordland National Park and Milford Sound‘ where for many, Milford Sound IS New Zealand! We’re on an organised trip there tomorrow, where they’ll do all the driving! (more details tomorrow).

What else is Te Anau famous for? It’s also home to the endangered, flightless Takahē bird – hope we get to see one. Other attractions? Te Anau Caves feature a limestone grotto of glowworms and an underground waterfall.

We’re off! Ann took the wheel for the first leg where we split the journey into two where our next stop will be the ‘one-horse’ town of Gore (1¾ hours in) before motoring through to our final destination of Te Anau.

The Road to Gore

We initially took the SH1 out of Dunedin.

Of course, being New Zealand, before 9am AND a Sunday meant the roads were almost completely deserted. In turn, that gave us another trouble-free journey from ‘A to B’.

Gore

Gore has a population of just over 8000 and is well-known for its country music scene (yee-hah!) hosting its own and world-famous annual country music festival (who knew? 🙄). The town is surrounded by farmland and is an important centre for agriculture in the region. From our perspective for ‘firsts’, this is the farthest south we will travel on this holiday.

10.47am: Here we are – 152km later – in Gore for just a comfort break. It was 15℃ here but felt a lot colder. There wasn’t much to see – a classic Kiwi ‘one-horse’ town – so we filled up with Petrol and tested the local loo! (it was immaculate, as they all are out here).

10.57am: Time to swap drivers for the final hop. My turn to drive, with Ann navigating.

The Road to Te Anau

Te Anau, here we come! A new road for us to discover, and as yet, uncharted territory – the SH94.

From Gore, it was 90-minutes behind the wheel, heading north-west. If some Romans had broken ranks and absconded to New Zealand, they’d feel very much at home here, as the roads today were again very long and very straight in many sections.

Part of the journey took us through Balclutha to Clinton – a distance of 32km/20 miles. During that hop, there was nothing in front and nothing behind for the whole 30 minutes. It really is a pleasure to drive out here! 👍👍

Since leaving this morning, the temperature rose briefly to a healthy 17℃, before plunging back to just 12℃! In fact, on the whole of this journey, it was up and down (but mostly down). The sky changed dramatically too, from a Summer-like deep blue to a rather sombre blue/grey.

Te Anau

With a population of just over 3000, tourism and farming are the predominant economic activities here. Its proximity to Milford Sound obviously helps! It’s also famous for trout fishing.

12.40pm: As expected, after almost 140km (90 miles) we arrived in Te Anau to cloudy weather and rain 🙄🙄. We were both starving and after a quick search on ‘tinterweb’ we found a restaurant called The Ranch in the town centre.

It was already quite busy, but they found us a table in the corner and we were soon browsing the menu.

1.45pm: Well, that hit the mark perfectly! We headed back to the car and onwards to our ‘home’ for the next two nights – Shakespeare House – a well furnished B&B. I’m not sure the Bard ever stayed here but we learned that the previous owner was also called Shakespeare.

In keeping with the Shakespeare theme, our room is called ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ which seemed strangely appropriate as Mrs P said there was always something special about my bottom! [Ed: complaints to the usual address!].

4.15pm: Happily, the weather improved into the evening – it’s usually around 15-17℃ at this time of year, but today, it’s closer to 13℃. The best temperatures here are in January where it can get as a high as 21℃, whilst the lowest is during July at around 9℃. So, today, whilst the Sun was (sort of) shining, we took a walk down to the Lake – it took all of three minutes to get there, and the views were amazing!!! 👍😀

The lake is named after the town and is the largest of the southern glacier lakes, covering an area of 344 square kilometres (132 sq miles).

It’s clearly a desirable place to have a house, and we spotted a few posh properties during our walk.

We were pleased to have dodged the showers where we’re learning that the weather conditions are very changeable here in New Zealand! 🙄

Driving in New Zealand – SH1 and SH94 from Dunedin to Te Anau (291km)

Road Name: SH1 & SH94
Condition: Very smooth with some very long straight stretches
Lanes: Initially motorways standards, but mostly single carriageway (with passing places)
Terrain: Level with a few inclines/descents towards the end of the journey
Scenery: Trees, Mountains, Gorse and Rapeseed – and the obligatory sheep and cows
Filling Stations: 4
Roadworks: Just one, but the lights were on red for 10 minutes!
Driver Courtesy: Great, as usual!
Speed Limits: 100km/h with a few 80 stretches, but slower entering the towns
Police/Speed cameras: None/None (this would have been a great route to ‘enjoy’ the performance potential of your vehicle!) 😉
Total distance travelled today: 291 kilometres (181 miles)
Total distance travelled since we picked up the car: 2558 kilometres (1590 miles)

Tomorrow, we’ve planned a full-day excursion to beautiful Milford Sound. I suspect more pictures than words in tomorrow’s Post! 👍😀

Thanks for continuing to follow our adventures here in New Zealand.
The readership figures are reaching new highs, and it’s good to read all your comments – thank you!
For those of you who read my daily ramblings over your corn-flakes, tomorrow’s missive will be posted slightly later.
We’ve a full day at Milford Sound (8.35am until 5.30pm), so expect something around 9-10am, tomorrow, your time!
👍😀