Life, the universe, coffee and travel
Our last morning here in QT and just chilling before heading back to the airport. We have been super lucky with the weather, it’s only just started to rain today. Coffee here is quite nice, attached to an old church (cafe named appropriately). First cafe I’ve seen in years give proper sugar cubes (I think that’s actually a health violation at home across the ditch)
Driving back to Queenstown today (we are flying home tomorrow), so we thought we would have a bit more of a look in Dunedin then drive back in the early afternoon. The castle room rate included a breakfast, and honestly wasn’t expecting much more than the usual buffet continental, however it included two full cooked options. The pancakes sounded awesome with the berry compote with Banana and granola topping, and yes up there with the best pancakes I’ve ever had. Coffee nothing special, just French press.
Sharon wanted to check out more of the second hand book stores, Dunedin has quite a few and apparently has the best ones in New Zealand. The best one ”Hard to Find Books” and the second best one “Dead Souls”.
Before heading into Dunedin we drove down to the end of the Peninsular to look through the Royal Albatross centre. Didn’t do any tours there but the centre is great.
I took the car for a charge whilst Sharon was shopping. I’m in the middle of nowhere in an industrial type complex. Thought I’d check for coffee, not expecting anything close and Google tells me there is a cafe in the garden centre next door. I went in and it’s massive, more like a small garden centre attached to the cafe. Thought I’d have heaps of time to get a coffee, but seems every retired person in Dunedin was there and it took ages to get one. Car had almost charged before I got my coffee.
The trip to Dunedin was a little slow with the condition of the highway and lots of roadworks, so I was worried about taking a more “scenic” route incase the road was even worse. Looking at the maps we could take a different route north via Palmerston which adds only 10 minutes. I also find out the its known as the “Pigroot” route, named after a hotel called the Pigroot from gold rush times.
My inner 14 year old is already sniggering about this (so is my outer 53 year old) and then I discover it also crosses the Shag river. This stuff just writes itself…… That seals the deal, we have to take that road just for the juvenile laughs. I wanted to get a pic of the sign over the Shag river, however the crossing was narrow and no where to stop.
Turns out it was a great decision to go this way, the Pigroot route road (State Highway 86) was in way better condition as well as flatter and straighter in most parts. Could actually get the car up to speed limit for most of it. Much less traffic too, we were the only car for most of it. This road may not be a great decision in winter as it goes through higher country which is likely why the signposted route goes the more southern highway 6.
Coming to Queenstown, this was another absolute must do thing on our list. Again we were blessed with outstanding weather, we started with a bit of drizzle however by the time we got to Milford Sound it was another warm clear sunny day.
According to the experts, Milford Sound is great in almost any sort of weather, when it’s raining it exposes lots of hidden waterfalls, and cloud and fog can give the place mystical properties. This may be the case, however if given the choice I’m going on a sunny day.
There are so many options on how to do Milford Sound, you can take an organised bus tour from Queenstown (or many other towns like Te Anau), fly in and out, combine a bus in with a flight out, drive there and just book a cruise on a boat.
We chose a bus tour from Queenstown that included a packed lunch and a two hour cruise on a boat through the Sound. There was also the option of changing from the bus to a flight for the return journey (of course for a rather significant additional charge).
The bus into the Sound stops at a couple of places for photo / toilet breaks, with a longer stop at Te Anau where you have a chance to grab a coffee and something to eat / purchase food if you didn’t buy the lunch package. Do this, as there is nothing at Milford Sound, and on our boat the only food was tea/coffee and biscuits. I would highly recommend a pie from “Miles Better Pies”
The bus stopped at Mirror Lakes for a photo opportunity (see my previous post of pics of that one) and the bridge over the Tutoko river. We also went past a number of very interesting looking coffee vans that I would have stopped at if I was driving myself. The Coffee Bomb at Garston looks amazing. Maybe it’s just the shiny silver Airstream caravan thats the attraction, but it also has an awesome rating on google, so they must be doing something right.
When we arrived at Milford Sound, we were transferred to a boat (in our case a large motorised catamaran) skippered by a South African with a penchant for crazy Dad jokes every few minutes.
The first thing we are told about Milford Sound is that it’s technically not a Sound at all, it’s a Fjord since the valley was carved by a glacier and not a river. However it was named before anyone was willing to borrow the word Fjord from Norwegian.
The cruise is of course spectacular, its about two hours, we got to see seals sunning themselves on rocks, the boat manoeuvres close to a waterfall so you can get a “Glacial Facial” from the spray if you so desire. The skipper also takes the boat out into the open water in the Tasman Sea as well, where it picks up significant speed (hold onto the handrails if outside!).
I mentioned that the package included the option to upgrade to a flight home. I hadn’t booked that initially as small planes scare the bejesus out of me. The recent crash of a small plane at Rottnest Island was also playing on my mind.
Elenor Roosevelt once said “Do one thing everyday that scares you”, and I think that could probably sum up my NZ holiday so far. The moonlight hike at the Hooker Valley Track scared me, I’m being scared daily on the roads here with some super crazy overtaking actions that I see other drivers doing on the shocking roads, so why not take a scary flight too ? This is the second time I’ve mentioned that at least I have decent insurance to cover the remaining family if the plane makes a John Denver manoeuvre.
That actually reminds me of one of my all time favourite dad jokes. Q. How is John Denver’s music like his aircraft ? A. Ultra Light and down to earth.
So weighing all that up against the prospect of a four hour bus ride back to Queenstown, I decide the send the Credit Card into the ring for another battering. The trusty credit card takes one for the team (or should I say 900), and here we are sitting on a small plane hurtling down the runway towards certain death the end of Milford Sound and then Queenstown only 45 minutes away. I guess that shows how much I hate busses if I’m willing to do this.
The flight is outstanding, with such amazing weather, the views are just jawdropping amazing. I am getting a few Indiana Jones vibes though as we fly so close to snow capped mountains in such a small plane. I wonder if the plane has a yellow dinghy?
The flight is 45 minutes however it seemed like it was only 5 once we were in the air. We arrived in Queenstown, flew over the main runway, and I’m thinking where are we going ? The runway is over there???, when all of a sudden the pilot makes a sharp tun and we head towards a runway that looks about the size of a pencil. It’s obvious now the other runway is reserved for real large planes.
The landing was very smooth, and unlike a commercial flight we were out of the airport in less than 5 minutes and in a taxi back to the apartment.
Before the wine tour we have today I walked down the hill to tick off the next cafe on the list. The hill we are on is incredibly steep, although the pictures don’t quite show how steep it really is
I’d forgotten it was Saturday morning so not all the cafes are open this early, and the one I’d planned on visiting wasn’t. No issue as a quick google check confirmed the other one I’d been considering was open so just walked across the road to that one.
The cafe I’m at (Marmolada Cafe) also benefits from being at the bus pickup area for many of the day bus tours that leave from Queenstown. We will be back at this one on Sunday when we do a Milford Sound bus tour.
Coffee was great and lived up to its rating on Google.
At breakfast I ordered a coffee, this isn’t included in the package and was $7.50. That’s absolutely on the high side of coffee prices here in NZ, they average about $5 in Queenstown, but given this is a five star hotel in a wilderness area it’s to be expected. Compared to what I’m paying for the accommodation here overnight it’s insignificant.
The breakfast was buffet style, not too bad but nothing like the quality of the dinner we had last night.
I love the T-shirt of the guy at the next table. As they would say here in NZ, nice shirt Bro!
It's all about the coffee 