Morna out of her comfort zone twice in one day
Tuesday and today we are due to drive to Te Anau, but first we decide to do a spot of extreme sports by taking a ride in a jet boat up the Kewaru and Shotover rivers…
Jet boats are designed to travel at 60kph in very shallow water. Many of the rivers here are wide, shallow and gravelly with an average depth of only 20-30cm.
Initially, Morna wasn’t too keen on the idea…
However, she quickly got used to the spray, bumps and teeth rattling vibration. The driver’s habit of aiming directly at bridges, trees and rocks then turning away at the last second, took a bit longer.
After our 60 minute dose of adrenaline, we topped up with fuel and set out for Te Anau, the gateway to the Fiordland national park.
The drive was another two and half hour marathon. We set out South through the mountains, along the banks of lake Wakatipu…
At the end of the lake, we headed West across rolling farmland on empty, wide straight roads passing through the occasional tiny settlement.
We eventually arrived at Te Anau…
We checked into the Alpenhorn motel…
Te Anau is small. It is also a clean, tidy, sleepy little place on the Eastern shore of New Zealand’s second largest lake. Across the lake lay the mountains of the Fiordland national park, so the setting is stunning.
As we took a stroll along the lakes shore, we noticed a float plane moored on the water…
Discovering that it was for hire. We made enquiries and we also found out that pleasure flights are much cheaper here than in the UK, so we paid for a 15 minute flight around the lake and between the mountains.
I love the experience of flying in light aircraft and I have a fascination with seaplanes, but for Morna, who is not a confident flyer, this was real Indiana Jones stuff!
