22 February 2015 - Lowburn Harbour, Lake Dunstan, Central Otago

Here we are again, three weeks to the day, situated on the banks of Lake Dunstan. I had been quite convinced we would have been somewhere along the road to Wanaka by tonight, the road across the Crown Range, perhaps even parked up beside the wonderful historic Cardrona Hotel, but no, plans changed and mainly because my dear husband is set on laying his hands on some more levelling blocks.

With good internet last night, I searched for suppliers within the Queenstown region, to no avail, then googled “RV supplies” and came up with one Queenstown Caravan Park and a UK Caravan agency, neither sounding very likely but contacted all the same. Both emailed back politely attempting to explain why their businesses should be thrown up in such a search. Chris is now convinced that the suspension problems we had with the previous motorhome were in part the result of inadequate blocking on the inside rear duel wheels. He does not want the same to happen to the new one, although other factors must surely be at play, and the only way to keep a vehicle in pristine condition is to wrap it in cotton wool and store it somewhere safe.

Anyway the final solution was to make some from timber sought from a hardware store, and when I asked him last night, “You were intending to drive through to Wanaka on the Crown Range route rather than the longer via Cromwell?”, he jumped at the suggestion of Cromwell remembering the hardware stores and the fact that parking and traffic congestions are not even considerations in this central Central Otago town. I immediately thought of other positives; the fact that a laundry in Cromwell was surely less costly than one in Queenstown and that we could last another day without fresh produce. And so here we are.

The sun arrived in Kinloch quite late, although not as late as in Glenorchy on the other side of the lake, and the heavy clouds on the summit of the Richardson Mountains didn’t help, but arrive it did, lighting up our beautiful lakeside spot near 9 am. Other campers rose with bleary eyes and made their way up to The Lodge, returning with their lattes and ristrettos in paper cups. Women made their way along the willow lined shore to the smelly long drop still in their pyjamas, something I cannot understand in any female over the age of about twelve. We headed off before the jet boat captains had finished cooking their breakfasts on fancy barbeques brought in for the occasion.

We drove up the west side of the lake, crossed the Dart River, passed under Mt Alfred, crossed the Rees, then travelled south to Glenorchy, a distance of just twenty six kilometres, but every kilometre just stunning in the morning sunshine. 

Pulling into the Glenorchy Garage, we were delighted to find a copy of yesterday’s Weekend Otago Daily Times. The proprietress was apologetic; I explained that it was that we had hoped for, but thought they would all be sold out. We drove on to the lake shore, where we had lunched a few days ago and set to and washed the dust off the camper, or at least Chris washed it, I carted water from the cold lake.

Still mid-morning, we were soon back on the road and heading further south down the lake shore toward Queenstown, the views wonderful, the trip better for the fact the only cyclists today were less than half a dozen would-be contenders for the Tour de France, or Queenstown. We found our way to the dump point up on the hillside, lined up and duly dealt with the necessaries, then headed off to Frankton, back to the New World at the Remarkables Park Shopping Centre where we were sure of buying one of the best French bread sticks in New Zealand, in our opinion.

A walk around Lake Hayes had been on Chris’s must-do lists for the Queenstown area, so there we headed, first to the Pavilion and Showgrounds which we found crowded out for an event, one involving lots of small children and equally small bicycles and tri-cycles. The next access to the lake, Bendemeer Bay was shrouded in low trees and the next, to the North Lake Hayes Picnic area perfect and the area at the bottom of the narrow gravel road, wide and welcoming. Better still was the discovery that a small area was now available for self-contained motorhomes to overnight. This did not fit with our current plans but we stored the information for future use.

We lunched on that delicious bread then set off for a taste of the newly opened walk. Looking for the access entry, we had realised that much of the circuit was along existing roads to bypass properties with riparian rights to the lake, and this did not really meet with our expectations of a DOC established walk around a lake, so we decided to do a small sample of the walk in a more naturel corner. We set off down the eastern shore of the lake, past the willows and up past the hawthorn bushes well-laden with berries, and a host of other long established European scrubby plants, walking only as far as the most elevated point of that shore, then turned and made our way back to the camper. Even from this small section of the walk, we were able to enjoy the views south to the Remarkables and east to the hills behind Arrowtown. We were also delighted to see so many locals making the most of the reserve; walking their dogs, swimming, kayaking, cycling, walking, running and picnicking. This was yet another positive to counteract our previous negative attitude toward the Queenstown area, from a motor homer’s point of view.

The road through to Cromwell from Queenstown follows the Kawarau River, passing through the Gibbston Valley, known as the Valley of the Vines, squeezed between the wild turbulent river and rugged schist mountains, the Carrick and Horn ranges to the south. There are at least eight well known vineyards in the valley, a cheesery and much more recently a new cycle trail. Here too is to be found the world famous and first commercial bungy jump, established by AJ Hackett and his side kick Henry van Asch, although Mr van Asch’s name is only evident at the exit to mark the vineyard one might feel bound to visit after such an adventure. 

The Bungy is situated at the historic 1880 Kawarau Bridge, twenty three kilometres east of Queenstown and was set up, first as a trial run in 1988, and then more permanently after the founders and the Department of Conservation came to an agreement, in 1990. It was only about five years after that when my father made his leap from the bridge, shocking us all as we viewed the obligatory video, and then about ten years later, my husband followed suit. Chris was very underwhelmed by the experience but that was probably because he had flung himself out of aeroplanes thirty years ago, parachuting in the Northern Territory.

We pulled in today to enjoy the entertainment. Fortunately one does not have to pay for the pleasure of watching people challenge their fears but then it makes for free promotion from the operator’s point of view; Chris asked me if I wanted to do it and I made it clear that I absolutely did not wish to do so. Zip-lining did appeal, and I had googled this activity in Queenstown a few days earlier, finding the operator with whom I had zip-lined in Whistler, Canada did indeed operate here but at a price that I could not justify. I was more impressed with Hackett’s zip-line, advertised at about $50, far fairer. But today when I saw the line, today closed for training purposes, I was most unimpressed; the experience would be only marginally more exciting than the flying fox at the children’s playground in Henderson, West Auckland. 

After watching half a dozen satisfied jumpers, we continued on our way, past all those vineyards and then descending steeply, more than I had remembered the road taken many years before. As we came on down one steep section, ahead I noted the speed advice signs at 75 kph followed by 65 kph; we were doing about 90 kph. I vocalised my concern to Chris who politely told me to stop the back seat driving, however as we turned at the bottom, he had to brake quite sharply as I expected, and one of the kitchen drawers shot out and hung at a precarious angle out of the hole. There was nowhere to stop or pullover, I told him to carry on and crawled back to rescue the rawer, lowering it onto the floor and crawling back to my seat. When we were finally able to stop and we made a hasty investigation, the damage seemed minimal, but later when we did arrive at our camp and take the time to sort the mess, we found the rarely-if-ever-non-breakable Pyrex casserole dish smashed. I was surprised that it was this and not the poor quality plastic beakers and wine “glasses”. We will have to buy a new one tomorrow if such an item exists in Cromwell, and sadly there was nothing wrong with the dish before the accident.

Interestingly neither of us has uttered blame on the other; he knows it was his erratic driving and I am pretty sure it was me who left the drawer unlocked when I had a glass of water after our walk at the lake. Both culpable and both mum!

Tonight as the sun disappears behind the ranges, there are probably more campers in than there were when we were last here. It is a very popular place, and deserves to be.