We checked out of our B&B and drove to the base of Mt. Iron for a bit of a walk before spending a great portion of the day riding in the car with Alex. About an hour later we had fully walked off the fabulous breakfast and Bonnie was well on her way to a second straight day of hitting 10,000 steps on her Fitbit! Some of the views from the peak.
The ride took us through some interesting places. Cardona, a small little “pass through” on the highway that has made itself into a full fledged tourist stop with a fence full of bras, now including a donation box for raising funds to fight cancer.
Note, with this photo Bonnie’s Senate career aspirations have now been dashed.
On our way through Queenstown a stop at the original (OG) bungee jumping site. Did Joel go for it?
Only if he has morphed into a 20 something Asian, other than that no. He had already used up his risk allotment for the next two years. But if he hadn’t…..
But we had lunch at Mt. Difficulty Winery. I think its good we went for the walk at Mt. Iron and lunch at Mt. Difficulty instead of the other way around….the winery view and food porn.
Drove a bit further, ok 2 more hours and checked into our home for the next 3 nights, Dusky Ridge. A sheep, cow, deer and alpaca farm outside of Te Anau.
Te Anau is the gateway to Fjord country. Tomorrow we head to Doubtful Sound and the next day Milford Sound. Even though they have been named Sounds, they are Fjords.
But tonight we have an appointment with Glow Worms in a cave. We take a boat across La Te Anau get put into holding pens in groups of 14. Get instructions about how to enter the cave, mostly watch your head as the cave has some very low spots. Seriously it went down to about a meter high at one point. You go into the entrance, very cool rock formations being carved by the water falling from another lake on top of the mountain. So it’s close, dark, damp as water is dripping on you everywhere I keep waiting for Bonnie’s claustrophobia to engage at warp speed, but she troops on. It didn’t get too bad until we climbed into little boats and it was totally dark and quiet, only the sound of rushing water. On the ceiling were small spots of lights, the glow worms. 15 minutes later we were out of the boats and reversing course to exit the caves. So the Glow Worms is the name given by marketers to maggots trapping water insects with an glowing tail end. Bonnie made it through barely, the maggots didn’t get her, but the dark close quarters just about did.