Queenstown to Te Anau

I think today was our quietist day, travelling south down Highway 6 and then west along 94 our only concern was the repeated roadworks and carpets of stones upon the seal threatening to take out the windscreen.

For the entire journey we followed dead-straight roads through Otago's arid and rocky environment. It wasn't until we reached Te Anau that the Fiordland opened up in dense greens and thick, low cloud that finally moved off at midday.

Te Anau is, compared to Queenstown, dead; and it became apparent that we have a little aclimitatizing to do going from densely populated areas to empty silence. We just get used to one and then we move, but then that's probably why all we could muster after the drive was a walk along Lake Te Anau's shoreline (north then south) and a long sunbathe, and finally a read beneath the line of the autumnal, and really cold breeze.

On one side of us the sun is just as strong, on the other, flying out through the Fiords, the wind and the shade is jumper-inducing. We're spending inordinate amounts of time dresssing and undressing.

Lake Te Anau, by the way is NZ's largest lake and is used to maintain the power station of Manaporai, signs telling us the environment services monitor the lake's levels to ensure it's never too full or empty (for ecological reasons) and that out of 200 wet days a year across the fiords, it only takes Te Anau 3 days to fill.