Dirk & Dixie's New Zealand Adventure 2025

  February 26, 2025 -  Drove to Te Anau, back through the tunnel.   Views this direction different and even more dramatic.  Missed the roadside stops we also missed on the way in.  Gas at Te Anau but then headed straight to Kingston on Lake Wakatipo south of Queenstow n.   Made a note to next time do some water activity on this Kawarau River flowing into Queenstown--such a beautiful gorge! Our Kingston Top 10 campsite provided free bikes, and after messing around with small helmets and flat tires, we rode out on the Around the Mountain bike trail. It was a climb and we made it to an old Scottish homestead before turning around and coasting downhill for 10 minutes until we were all the way down.  We were out of snacks so went to the one quicky mart in town and got huge ice creams around 5pm, that served to keep us full until a very late dinner.  Went to the end of town in the car to hike a short trail but it was very short and l...

  Monday, Feb 24, 2025.  Woke up to lovely view of Lake Te Anau from our RV. After oatmeal and plum breakfast, we hit the road to Milford Sound, with a quick stop at the visitor’s center for a guide to walks along the road. Got our audio tour set up and enjoyed the background it provided along the route.   Stop 1 was Lake Mistletoe.  Nice pseudo bracken fern over my head. Stop 2:  Mirror Lakes.  Mountains getting crazy steep and jagged.  Brown scaup ducks on lakes. Stop 3:  Cascade Creek to Gunn Lake:  huge red beech forest with tons of moss.  Another giant! Not the beech trees we learned about in Nova Scotia! Learned about three types of beech:  silver (serrated leaves), mountain (pointed leaves) and red (with thin pliable rounded jaggedy leaves)---all the leaves are tiny and they are evergreen.   Stop 4:  Hollyford Road to Lake Marian hike ---short walk up endlessly cascading river...