After yesterday’s sheeting Antarctic gales we awoke to this incredible view of Dunedin from our room at the Hotel St. Clair.
The hotel is sited right on the Pacific and we had a terrace overlooking the beach. Well worth getting here in yesterday’s storm.
We got back into our Toyota Highlander and set out for today’s itinerary: Invercargill via The Catlins and then Queenstown. The Catlins are an area along the coast that contains some incredibly beautiful rolling hills along the coast.
The road just wound its way through the hills. If felt very much like the English countryside.
Many, many sheep farms along the way.
Every so often the road would wind along the coast and we were able to stop at a place called Kaka Point which offered some wonderful ocean views. There were exactly two other people stopped here and they were just leaving.
After making a right turn at Invercargill we headed up into the mountains towards Queenstown. Queenstown is sort of the Tahoe of New Zealand; very well known ski resort with a lot of non-skiing activity like hangliding, gondolas, etc. it was to be our jumping off point to the west coast. As we rose higher into the mountains signs of autumn began to appear.
As you can see snow-capped peaks also started to make an appearance.
Closer and closer we got.
And then as we got close to Queenstown a mountain range called “The Remarkables” came into our view. They certainly live up to their name.
Speaking of remarkable, we also saw this remarkable boulder just perched along the side of the highway. That must have given some poor driver quite a fright.
There is a portion of the road called the Devil’s Staircase because you are winding around the edge of a mountain on a sheer cliff with nothing but a short wire fence as your guardrail. This picture is taken from the Devil’s Staircase.
Finally we arrived in Queenstown just as the sun was setting on The Remarkables.
We checked into our room at the Sofitel and then headed out for dinner. Here’s our living room.
Tomorrow we head to the west coast via the Haast Pass!
