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| Camping on the River Rees |
From Queenstown we headed straight into the hills of Glenorchy.
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| Lakeside, Glenorchy |
We found a fabulous camping spot on the river and James headed out for a fish. Not too tricky but this one went back to live it's best life.
The views were spectacular and the sun going down on the river was not to be missed.
The next day we drove further up the valley to see the views made famous by the filming of Lord of the Rings in this area.
Next, we headed to Te Anau where we decided to take a trip in to Lake Mavora. We didn't get quite that far when we decided to stop at a hunting spot we had heard about. We camped here for a couple of nights enjoying a few treks into the forest.
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| Cute wee Robin keeping us company while we 'glassed' the flats |
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| The start of the walk |
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| View from camp |
It would have been churlish not to take a trip up to Milford Sound as we were in the area. This is one of the most popular tourist destinations in New Zealand and is not very hospitable to the campervan/freedom camping crowd. They are really suffering from the lack of overseas tourists and it was blissfully (to us anyway!) quiet.
On the way back out we stopped for a couple of fishing opportunities. We saw a couple of lovely big trout but only managed to hook an eel!
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| Spot the fisherman! |
Next stop .... a friend's place in Riverton where we had the pleasure of meeting this bundle of fluff
and catching some lovely trout on yet another river
And just in case you can't catch your own ....
Heading further south we hit the coast just east of Invercargill. We had not been to the ocean since Christmas and hadn't realised how much we had missed it.
Clare (accidently, as in not intentionally) caught this beauty of the sea-run trout at the mouth of the river at Haldane Bay. We were fishing for kahawai, but this was an even better score.
We scored a couple of flounder off a couple of very friendly fisherpeople.
And foraged for some yummy, sweet cockles in the mud flats.
Stopping off at a campsite along the way we went for a walk into the bush and saw a deer, albeit fleetingly, at the end of this track just as the sun went down.
As we headed toward the Catlins, we were again struck by the wild beauty of this south coastline.
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| The view from Florence Hill |
Time to head inland again to a camp we had been told about that may yield a bit of meat if we were lucky. This was the Catlins River Wisp Loop track. We enjoyed this place so much we really didn't want to leave. We didn't manage to harvest any meat, although the odd opportunity did present itself, but the river was so much fun to fish and the bush was most alluring.
