Tuesday, 14 October 2025
The IT Guy cracked it last night … with himself. Phew, for once it had nothing to do with one of my devices or my ineptitude with technology. Trying to be organised for some upcoming excursions, he tried to transfer the confirmation email back to the inbox to make them easy to find at check-in. However, ‘something’ happened and the email was nowhere to be found. After checking through all the folders manually he still could not find the email. Finally, he asked Google and leant that if you want to undo something you’ve done on Apple Mail, just shake your iPad and, voila, your last action is undone. Sure enough, a shake of his iPad and the email was back again in the folder he had filed it in before deciding to move it. Crisis averted.
We were up early this morning to take the 8.00am ferry back to the South Island. The Bay Motel ran us back down to the harbour with our luggage at 7.20am to have us there (well and truly) by 7.30am. They are obsessed here with you checking in for everything half an hour early! The ferry cast off right on time and we enjoyed a much calmer trip back this morning, with only a 15 knot wind blowing. No waves breaking over the boat!
After we disembarked back in Bluff, we collected our luggage and dragged it to the car. We loaded our cases and the trusty Esky (it IS actually branded Esky!) into the boot and Bernie set the SatNav for the ehayes department store in Invercargill, as he wanted to see the World’s Fastest Indian. We arrived at the store and entered through the hardware department, where we were told we would find the motorcycle at the back of the store. Making our way to the back of the store we found many more vehicles (mainly motorcycles) that make up the E Hayes Motorworks Collection, interspersed with all manner of hardware. And it’s free, you don’t pay a cent to see this interesting collection of motor vehicles scattered through a hardware store in downtown Invercargill.
At the back of the store we found THE bike on which Burt Munro claimed the Class S-A 1000cc World Record on 26th of August 1967 with an average speed of 184.087 mph. The average speed was calculated from a north run and a south run on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, USA. The record still stands today because the class has since been retired. Burt’s story was told in the 2005 movie ‘The World’s Fastest Indian’ starring Anthony Hopkins as Bert Munro.
Our next stop was at Queens Park, an 80-hectare public park in the centre of Invercargill. It is described as a Five Star Garden of National Significance and, unfortunately today, we had neither the time nor the weather to do it justice. We set out in drizzle hoping it wouldn’t get worse … but it did … so we ended up a bit damp after our brief visit to just a small part of the 80 hectares.
When the SatNav was set for Te Anau, Syri provided us with three options with only a few minutes difference between the fastest and slowest route. We decided to take the southernmost option hoping it wouldn’t be the most scenic.
We headed northwards out of town on State Highway 1 before taking a left onto State Highway 39 heading towards Riverton. Before we reached Riverton we cut across to the Riverton-Otautau Road near Thornbury. From Otautau we continued through verdant green gazing land (sheep and cows) eventually arriving in Clifden where we stopped to look at the old suspension bridge across the Waiau River. The single lane bridge was opened in 1899 and remained in operation until 1978 when a new bridge was built 130 metres downstream, in large part to cater for traffic to and and from the Manapouri power project.
Now driving northwards on the Clifen-Blackmount Road we were treated to impressive mountain scenery all around us, some still topped with snow. Arriving at the Hillside-Manapouri Road, Suri told us to turn right. Looking at the atlas, it seemed it would be more scenic to go left to Manapouri and then alongside Lake Manapouri as we headed north.
We arrived in Manapouri and snapped some shots looking across the lake to the mountains. After a drive along the lakeshore on Fraser’s Beach Road, we circled back around to try to find somewhere to eat. The only place that was open was The Church Bar and Restaurant. We headed in and ordered toasted sandwiches for a light lunch. We headed up to the upstairs terrace and sat in glorious sunshine with a magnificent view to wait for our sandwiches. And wait … AND WAIT. It took 50 minutes for our simple lunches to arrive!! Luckily we had an hour to spare sitting around waiting for food to be prepared. Thank goodness the weather was beautiful and the view so awesome.
We arrived in Te Anau and checked in at the Aden Motel. After our long lunch, we now only had time to unpack the car before we needed to head to the dock for our tour to the Glow Worm Cave. Aaargh! We couldn’t lock our door so headed around to the office to say we were having trouble. David said he’d come to have a look, then realising that we were on our way out told us to go and he would secure our room.
It was a wonderful day for a cruise on Lake Te Anau, the largest lake in New Zealand. On our way to the caves the boat was nosed into the entrance to the South Fiord, one of three ‘inland’ fiords in the lake. The other two fiords are named Middle Fiord and North Fiord. The guide providing the commentary deadpanned that ‘we’re pretty creative around here with our names’. Ha, ha.
We were actually very lucky to be able to take this tour today as it has had to be cancelled for several days after recent rain made the water levels too high to take visitors into the cave. After a brief video about the life cycle of the glow worms and learning that they are technically glow maggots (they are the offspring of flies!) we were led into the cave by our guide, Deegs. In the first part of the cave we were astounded by the amount of water that is still flowing ferociously through the cave system. It made it difficult to hear what Deegs was telling us.
Eventually we reached the section where visitors are loaded into boats and taken through to the cavern with the greatest concentration of glow worms. It’s pretty awesome seeing all the dots of light on the ceiling of the cavern where the ‘worms’ are basically lighting up their butts to attract insects into the sticky threads they have hung from their nests to catch the insects. After the light show, we re-traced our steps to the boat and we motored back to Te Anau.
Arriving back in town, it was about dinner time, so we thought that we would eat before returning to the motel. Bernie had sussed out the Redcliff Restarant and Bar and decided we would enjoy something a little more upmarket tonight. Annoyingly, they didn’t have a table available until 8.00pm. That gave us an hour to kill so we walked back to the motel where our key would not unlock our door. On the plus side, David had been good to his word and secured our room for us.
Hmmn, back to reception. David was surprised to see us back, grabbed the spare key for Room 9 and accompanied us to the room. Bernie tried our key with David watching to prove we couldn’t unlock our door. He tried his key and it turned the lock without any trouble. Oh well, he said, you keep this one, there’s obviously some problem with the other one. Hang on a moment, this key tag is for Room 6 not Room 9. No wonder the key didn’t work, ha, ha. Well, we were in our room and David was off to have a word to Irene who checked us in. Oops!
Back into town at 8.00pm where we enjoyed some delicious lamb racks at Redcliff.
Steps: 16,077 (10.31kms)
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