Glenorchy

We drove from Milford Sound yesterday back through Te Anau, around and up to Queenstown and then out along Lake Wakatipu to Glenorchy.  Without a doubt, this is the most scenic area we have enjoyed here in New Zealand.  Glenorchy is a dead-end, road-wise, so it has stayed a small town, unlike Queenstown which is a nightmare of tourists and congestion.

Here we have bird songs and cows and sheep to lull us to sleep or wake us up in the morning. There are the soaring Remarkable Ranges to loom over and around us, and the lake is beautiful and shallow at this end where the Dart River enters.  It is Glenorchy where our friends Randy and Amanda plan on settling in, and we certainly can see why.  Just up the road is Paradise (which is not far off from true, in my estimation) where a number of movie scenes from The Lord of the Rings were filmed.  There are tour companies (we saw two today) that take people to these locations, but the road requires 4-wheel drive vehicles and sadly, our camper van is not.  The dirt roads we did drive on were terrible, but the scenery was excellent.

After some dawn photos and our Paradise jaunt, we came back to town and trekked around the Glenorchy Lagoons and these were far more accessible and just as impressive as any movie scene location.  Now we are relaxing after a long morning and trying to plan the next few days, probably Arrowtown and Queenstown then who knows?

Dawn Fishing

Glenorchy Water Trees

Flying North for Winter

Milford Sound Farewell

Glenorchy Lagoon

Glenorchy Walking Track

Another Glenorchy Lagoon

The Local Forest

Lake Wakatipu and road from Queenstown

Glenorchy Shack

Moonlight over Lake Wakatipu

Stars over Glenorchy