(written on March 9th from notes taken previously)
It seemed like I was here there and everywhere today. 🙃
So. Many. Stops. 😊
Of course, the day started out with my morning News fix, getting the updates on everything going on in Iran. I also spent a bit of time working on journaling stuff. Since relapse crashing the other night, I’ve just sort of fallen off a cliff with everything, including journaling (obviously 😅)
Like yesterday, as I visited the various places I went to today, I listened to video after video after video of information and analysis on what’s going on in the Middle East.
Crazy times.
After finally pulling myself away from the dirt parking area by the bridge, I pointed the nose of my van northish, destination Fiordland… eventually. 🙃
My first stop of the day was the Wairaki Oxbow Lake Lookout which was… mildly interesting. After parking in a little dirt parking area and going through a few Gates along a dirt path, you end up overlooking the crescent-moon-shaped lake.
Given the proximity of the lake to a nearby river, I’m guessing that many moons ago the area that is now a lake used to be a side branch of the river.
No longer.
Continuing my tradition of following roads into the bush until they end, my next stop was Lake Monowai, pausing on the drive to that lake only to take some pictures at a beautiful bridge (which I also pinned as a possible future cliff-jumping spot 🙃) and to chat briefly (before losing reception) with my brother Richard about a car he was helping his neighbor to figure out.
Lake Monowai was nice, similar in feel to Lake Hauroko from yesterday, although this lake was dammed up on one end, making it a little deeper I’m guessing and creating the opportunity for what looked like maybe a small hydroelectric spillway?
🤷
My next stop was not on my list of tentative places to visit today I don’t think. I think I just saw a brown sign (attraction) and decided to check it out. 🙃
The Rakatu Wetlands.
At the end of a relatively short dirt road, there was a little dirt parking lot and pathway options. You could make the long walk all the way around the wetland area, where you could make a shorter walk up to a lookout spot.
I chose the lookout spot, winding my way up the hillside path to the overlook above. Like the Wairaki Oxbow Lake, it was… interesting. Actually… the Wetlands were probably more interesting than the Oxbow Lake.
Just a few more miles up the road, just after some construction, was the Mararoa River Lookout. With the construction, I couldn’t stop on the bridge itself, but there was a little dirt road that I drove down to get to the side of the river, and then I walked along the river a little bit and took some pictures of the pretty scenery.
I don’t remember exactly where it was, I think maybe between there and Manapouri that there was just a random, massive, recycling bin–one of those ones that’s kind of like a shipping container with a bunch of holes on one side to put the recyclables in.
That was a welcome encounter. 🙏
I’ve been carrying multiple bags full of stuff. One bag of recyclables, one bag of trash, and one bag full of soft plastics because I keep hoping I’m going to find a place to recycle the soft plastics. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ve run into any since coming to the South Island?
Maybe they don’t have soft plastic recycling on the south island. 🤔
Everywhere I go, it’s just listed as a standard trash item.
🤷
Grateful to be able to reduce the mess and increase my cargo space, I had it on down the road, parking in a small parking lot overlooking Lake Manapouri.
I needed to figure out what I was going to be doing for the night, as there are zero freedom-camping locations nearby.
I think there might only be one freedom-camping spot, if even one, in all of Fiordland, and that one was way back down at Lake Hauroko.
There definitely weren’t any freedom-camping locations along the Milford Road between Te Anau and Milford Sound. There were, however (and gratefully 🙏) a very large number of inexpensive Department of Conservation campgrounds. After plugging each of the named campsites into Google Maps to see their locations on a map, I picked Upper Eglinton Campsite, because it was relatively close to Milford sound (only Cascade Creek Campsite was closer) and unlike Cascade Creek that I think had something like 120 possible camping sites, Upper Eglinton had only three.
I dislike crowds. 🙃
American, I think I paid something like $10.61 for the campsite for the night, which was far cheaper than driving to the nearest freedom-camping spot, which also would have been quite a ways out of my way.
I’m grateful for cheap campsites.
Assuming I go back to New Zealand, which is probably quite likely, I think I’m going to buy myself the DOC campsite pass. I think that will actually pay for itself and make it easier to find places to stay when I run into crowded freedom-camping areas.
I made a few more official destination stops before heading into Fiordland National Park. The first two stops were to Lord of the Rings filming locations, one that was called the Boulder Reach Viewpoint, which I have no idea what is 🙃, and the other one was an Anduin River overlook.
I can’t say that I actually recognized either place, but the views are beautiful either way. 🙃
I had a little bit of a harder time finding the Anduin River Overlook, but I eventually found it, walking through the woods a fair bit to match up my viewpoint with a photo someone had posted online from the area.
At the end of the dirt road that also has the Anduin River Overlook, was a large parking lot for the Rainbow Reach Bridge.
I think it must also have been the starting point for multiple hikes? That’s just a guess based on the reality that there were a gazillion cars in the dirt parking lot but very few people on the bridge itself.
🤷
I snapped some pictures of the beautiful river views from the bridge.
And then I headed toward the cheapest gas station in Te Anau, wanting to make sure my tank was full before driving into Fiordland.
When I got there, I recognized the gas station as one Chase and I had stopped at a few years ago, and once again, I was very grateful that my credit card worked at another self-pay terminal. 🙏
It’s so nice to be able to get gas anywhere. I’ve wasted so much time and energy trying to find gas stations that had convenience stores attached to them.
Not to mention the self-pay stations are usually 10+ cents/liter cheaper.
With my tank topped off, I headed north up Highway 94 toward Fiordland, stopping to take pictures here and there.
I thought about maybe driving all the way into Fiordland, as the weather was pretty good, but it was already getting to be a bit later in the day, and I figured it was time to settle in for the night.
Upper Eglinton Campsite didn’t have any obvious parking spots: It was basically just a donut turnaround with a plastic long drop, so I just parked on the side of the donut closest to the long drop and called it good.
I wandered out toward the river, but turned back without going super far. I picked up a little bit of trash, veged out a bit, worked on my journal a bit, and called it a night.
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 