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Trailor on Tour
Having had my bran flakes and sat by the water's edge for a coffee, I headed out of Wanaka, south along the scenic no 89 road. This road is extremely windy and passes up over Crown Peak at 1729m, before heading back down towards Queenstown. En route I passed through Cardrona, not renowned for much, except it's bra fence. Yes, I have typed that correctly - bra fence. Not sure how or why it started, but there is a stretch of metal fence about 500m long which has been adorned with bras of all sizes and colours. Apparently there was a move to have them removed last year, but a petition was started and the bras stayed!
During my travels over here I have been amazed at the interest in The Lord of the Rings, which was filmed over here and had a Kiwi director, Peter Jackson. Everywhere you go you can buy guide books that just take you from one location to another, although none of the sets were allowed to remain. Yesterday I even saw a painted campervan which had depictions of the film all over it and when I spoke to the lady driving she was purely travelling the country on a LOTR tour. I have probably been to Middle Earth and not even realised it, as there were lots of wildly varied unspoilt locations used.
I decided to take a slight detour from the main tourist route and stopped for lunch in a small place called Arrowtown. It is an early gold mining town that has been restored and is really pretty and quaint, resembling a movie set from a Western. Having spent much longer than intended faffing around here, I got back on the road and put my foot down to try and reach Dunedin before it went dark. I stopped not far from Arrowtown to look at the nutters throwing themselves off a bridge. This was AJ Hackett Bungy, which was opened in 1988 and was the birthplace of this extreme sport. The jump is from a suspension bridge over the Kawarau River and is like a coveyor belt. I'm glad I was on my own or I may have been talked into it, as it was I escaped with just a photo!
I then drove along the no 8 highway through Cromwell, Alexandra and Milton, finally reaching my destination at about 2000 and checking in to the Stafford Gables YHA.
I have noticed some strange bites on me and yesterday felt a nip when I had stopped to admire a view - sand flies. Horrible little blighters and the bites are far more irritating than mosquito bites. On me they seem to come up as funny looking spots that take ages to go down. Apparently vitamin B1 in your body is a major deterrent - better start eating jars of Marmite form now on!
Dinner tonight - noodles with tuna and sweetcorn! S xx
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