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This has been uploaded a couple of days after writing it.
12th Jan
Well I'm sitting in the roof of the Bongo with Rosie and it's been a long day. I'll tell you about today later. The last couple of days saw us leave Queenstown and our river trip and head further South to the Fiordland National Park. Ideally we wanted to get right into the Fiords themselves to experience the Glacier created water ways and the splendour of the mountains which come right down to water level as does the tree line. The difficulty was the expense of six people doing it (as always) and the additional issue of going on a three hour cruise with a three year old who will only look at the wonder of the mountains and the view for so long before needing extra attention or stimulus. The stress this can induce on the parents trying to avoid everybody elses trip being effected is not to be underestimated. However there were a couple of extra adventures we could try. The first of these was to camp at a DOC (Department of Conservation) campsite rather than our normal commercial site with all the amenities. We chose one beside lake Te Aneau which was picture postcard perfect, pitched our tent and then went to head off to the town (Te Aneau) for dinner. Unfortunately I didn't see the tree parked behind me and reversed into it, smashing a couple of lights and scraping the bumper. Well you can imagine the cursing! Everything still worked OK so we had tea and then came back to the site to be confronted by Michele's second worse nightmare after cold water - bugs! The west coast and Fiordlands are renouned for their sandflies which are similar to Mozzies but the pain is worse and lasts for longer! They were out in force so Michele lit all our citronella candles and two mozzie coils which gave us enough time to enjoy the sunset over the mountain before retiring to our sleeping bags. A few got in the tent with me and Isla and Connie so we spent half an hour playing kill the sand fly before we were clear enough for sleeping. Incidentally the DOC sites do not have any amentities except for water (tap or river) and normally a pit toilet or two. Horrible campsite loos rank within the top five of Michele's worse things (see the Lake Te Aneau photo album) so all in all it was quite an eventful stay.
The next morning we headed back into town and we celebrated Meg's birthday with breakfast and presents by the lake. Michele did homework and trip books with Rosie and Connie while I and the two little ones went off to find a more luxurious campsite. We visited a wild life sanctuary in the morning which houses some of New Zealand's endangered native birds. They have quite a few flightless birds - parrots etc. Afatre lunch we headed off on a boat across Lake Te Aneau to visit the glow worm caves on the far shore. Lake Te Aneau is the second largest lake on the south Ilsand and just dwarfs anything the UK has to offer. They are so deep as well - well over a km in places and all the these are apline lakes are very, very cold. The boat trip was great but the trip into the Glow Worm Caves was just amazing. We thought Isla and Meg would get the heebie jeebies about going underground were it's dark, cold and wet, particularly as outside is so hot and clear. Meg went very quiet for the duration of the tour underground but seemed to enjoy it. The highlight was boarding a small boat and going along an undergound river to an area of the cave which they keep in pitch darkness and is just covered in glow worms. It was one of those moments when you just think wow! and don't quite know what to say - although the guide would issue a sharp sssssh if anyone so much as whispered as noise really affects the worms apparently. The glow worm experience was a real highlight for us and we all thoroughly enjoyed the day. It ended well too as we had a cake for Meg back at the more luxurious campsite.
As I said at the start of this section today (12th) was a long day as we spent most of it driving and it was quite hard going for all of us. The children were getting restless and we were a little anxious as we drove through the Haast Pass to cross the mountains and come down on to the West Coast. The scenery was typically awesome but the rain started coming down (as is it seems to very often in these parts) and we stopped for a break at the Thunder creek Water Fall - spectacular 30 metre fall. We were booked into a campground at the last minute and when we arrived we found out they didn't do tent sites, they were gravelled bays for campervans. As it was late we decided to see if we could all sleep in the van - no stress there then!! So here we are. Rosie and I in the top and Michele and the other three underneath in a van designed for four with all our kit heaped onto the driver and passenger's seats. Every now and then we'll hear a thump on the van below as Michele hears the whine of another mozzie in the van and attempts to assasinate it!
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