Tuesday 22nd February

The weather today is definitely better than it was yesterday, but there again it could hardly be worse!

We breakfasted at The Olive Tree and after refuelling the human we also refuelled the car before driving out of Te Anau towards Manapouri.

The scenery soon changed from the lakes and fiords around Te Anau to rich pastureland where sheep and cows were grazing.  The flocks of sheep are much bigger than we see in England and quite tightly packed in the meadows.  We also managed to photograph one of the many birds of prey we have seen; we believe they are Australasian Harriers.

We then followed the scenic route to Tuatapere via Clifden, where we stopped to admire the Clifden Suspension Bridge, currently out of use.  It was a little smaller than our Clifton Suspension Bridge but still worth calling in to see.

We stopped for coffee in the little town of Tuatapere at the Yesteryear’s Museum.  It was full of kitchen equipment, china and glass wear from the 50’s.

There was not much else to take photographs of around the town so had to make do with photographing the mural on the public toilets!

Following the coast road towards Invercargill we stopped to take photos of the huge breakers.  The sea was very grey as was the sky.   We also took photographs of the wind sculptured macrocarpa trees which were planted to act as wind breaks for the homesteads from the fierce southerly winds that lash the coast.

 

We had a text from Robyn asking if we were safe.  At that stage we hadn’t heard about the earthquake in Christchurch.  We sent a text back to reassure her that we were fine.  (We didn't realise how bad it was at that stage)


 We stopped at Riverton overlooking the river mouth for our usual lunch and spotted our first whale!

We arrived at the Balmoral Lodge Motel and watched the television to see the devastation in Christchurch.  We are going to wait a few days before we contact Saga Independent to check on what we should do.  We are hoping and praying that the people that we met on our coach trip are safe as most of them were due to fly out today or tomorrow.