South Island Holiday
21-12-2004 to 09-01-2005
Day 1
21st December
A wet Hamilton Airport.
But Wellington Airport is dry as we wait for our flight to Invercargill.
Bluff
22nd December
Bluff is Lands End for New Zealand.
Looking towards Antartica from the lookout over Dog Island.
Looking the other way.
Cafe at Lands End.
The signpost at Lands End.
Colleen having a swing.
Kingston
23rd December
Uncle Bob took us to Fairlight to catch the steam train to Kingston. He and Aunty then met us there when we arrive.
These are acouple of the carriages.
Chris sitting in the Guards seat in the Guards Van.
View up and down the line.
Peter sitting in one of the smart carriages.
The Kingston Flyer at Kingston.
Filling up the water for the engine.
Loading up with coal.
The main street in Arrowtown an historic gold mining town.
The Clyde dam.
Looking down the Clutha river from the dam.
Invercargill
25th December
Christmas day breakfast.
Chris and Peter on Christmas morning in Aunties house.
Retired theatre nurse Annette sewing up the Christmas Turkey.
Christmas lunch.
Left to right.---Aunty Annette,------->Colleen,-------->Uncle Bob,---------------->Chris,---------->Peter
Christmas dessert.
In the afternoon we went to the cemetery to visit the boys great grandparents grave. Annetta and Robert Pope.
Invercargill
26th December
Today we went for a walk on Oreti Beach. Burt Munro used the beach as a testing and racing site for his modified Indian motorcycle.
Te Anau
27th December
Peter on the trampoline at our accomodation in Te Anau.
Uncle Bob and Auntie dropped us off in Te Anau where we continue our holiday.
Lake Te Anau.
Views across the lake to the Kepler and Murchison mountains.
Manapouri
28th December
Today we are going for a boat ride on Lake Manapouri to the power station.
Approaching the power station.
Manapouri Power Station is an underground hydroelectric power station.
This is the above ground transmission area.
The Penstocks for the station 200m below lake level.
From the power station a bus took us down to Doubtful Sound for our boat ride.
Doubtful Sound as we travel down to the Deep Cove arm.
The weather was not good down in the Sound so we stayed inside the boat and took no photos till we reached the mouth.
Fur Seals.
This is what the weather was like.
In one of the arms of the Sound were some Bottlenose Dolphins.
Unfortunately my camera took too long to take a photo so all I captured was the splash as they landed!
On our way back we had a tour of the power station.
This is a model of it. Access to the power station is via a two-kilometre vehicle-access tunnel which spirals down from the surface. In yellow.
This is the access road. There is also a lift from the control room above the lake.
The power station machine hall was excavated from solid granite rock 200 metres below the level of Lake Manapouri.
Catching our boat ride back to Manapouri where our excursion started.
To Franz Joseph
29th December
We hired a car in Te Anau and drove to Franz Joseph. The weather was worse than the day before.
