Glenorchy

Tramping in Paradise

Coming back to Queenstown around dusk, we decided not to stay in town, but to carry on to Glenorchy, a village at the western end of Lake Wakatipu. The road follows the edge of the lake, and on the way, you pass, among other things, Twelve Mile Delta, or Amon Hen, and parts of Ithilien. The scenery around Glenorchy is justly praised as being among the finest in the country, particularly around the Dart River and the area aptly named Paradise. Not having more than a day to spend, we decided to do a bit of a tramp around Sylvan Lake, not far from Paradise.

Beech forest

The forest around Sylvan Lake is a fine example of the beech forest that the area is famous for. There is very little undergrowth, and the sunlight filters through the canopy, lighting up the deep green mosses and lichens that thrive on the dead trunks that litter the forest floor. Dead trees are not removed, and there is no culling, but the forest is left to regenerate itself.

Sylvan Lake

The lake itself is stunningly tranquil, the still waters offering a perfect mirror image of the mountains beyond. As you can see, the water was also very clear, and very cold - we were now firmly in the habit of drinking 'wild' water with our Vanilla Wine biscuits, and Sylvan Lake tasted great.

As we sat on a rock, enjoying our second breakfast, this little bird came up and started tidying up the crumbs. We later learned that it was a kind of robin, and it was astonishingly unafraid - it all but took food from our hands, and it (or one of its cousins) followed us around the woods for about an hour afterwards. I'm not a person who gets particularly excited over birds - winged wildlife tends to leave me cold (unless it's something spectacular, like a Packard's Raptor tearing into some roadkill right in front of the car, in which case I will yell bad words and swerve) - but it is undeniably amazing when they are this tame.

Glenorchy

After a tramp of nearly five hours, we were both well and truly knackered, and it was all we could do to drag our butts back to Glenorchy and cook up two portions of that backpacker's staple: pasta and red sauce.

The following day was one of the coldest we had had so far, and it was beautiful. A few horses, nice chunky Clydesdale crosses, such as are often used for trekking here, were hanging out in a paddock behind the hostel, and I got this picture of them before we had to start scraping the ice off the car so we could head back to Queenstown, for Selina's very last day in Kiwiland.

The following day, we drove back to Queenstown, and in the morning, Selina drove to Christchurch to catch her plane back to Britain. As for me, I thought I had deserved some time out.