Glenorchy February 13-15, 2004
A weekend in Glenorchy
Lori wanted to do one of the trails out of Glenorchy and Scott wanted to do some mountain biking in the same area. Lori caught the bus on Monday (Feb. 9) for Queenstown and then to Glenorchy. We were to meet her at Kinloch Lodge on the 13th.
Lori beat us to the lodge as to be expected. She had fallen in the swamp and spent the day wet. We had more clothes for her and that helped her to get warm. We had a nice dinner in the restaurant and then talked outside the room while we waited for Graham to go to sleep. It started raining some time during the night. We had a big breakfast and by the time we had everything loaded in the car, the rain had let up. Maybe we would get to go biking after all.
We drove down the road to see if we could find the place we were staying that night (the farm cottage at the Routeburn Station). The owner said to follow the signs to the Routeburn and there was a sign on the fence. We found the place and then drove to the end of the road where the Routeburn Track starts. The weather still looked good so we stopped back at the cottage to see if we could drop off some stuff and then headed to Paradise. Lori said that she would watch Graham while Scott and I biked to the end of the road. They were going to see the cows and sheep and take a walk in the woods. The bike ride was nice. I chickened out on one of the streams and walked through it instead of biking. I just kept thinking that I would fall and ruin the camera in my pocket. Oh well. The Dart Track starts at the end of the road. Scott went exploring along the river and I went to read the signs on the bridge. Part of the track were washed out and that was as exciting as the signs got. Scott came back with rocks as usual, but he was the one to carry them back so it didn't matter to me. The sand flies were driving me nuts and it was time to get moving again.
When we got back to the car, Scott wanted to ride a bit further so off he went while I changed and grabbed something to eat. Then we were off in the car. I convinced myself that we had missed Scott in the woods when we drove for a bit and hadn't seen him yet. So we turned around and went back to look. No Scott. OK so maybe we didn't miss him. Sure enough, he was coming back to look for us thinking that I had got the car stuck someplace. I was glad that he had turned around because I would have headed towards the cottage and he would have gone to Glenorchy. Good thing we found each other because rain wasn't far away.
It was raining by the time we got to Glenorchy. We just kept driving and ended up in Queenstown where we did some quick shopping and grab some food at the grocery store to cook for dinner. Then back to the cottage we went.
After dinner (or was it before?), we took a walk to Lake Sylvan. We didn't make it to the lake because it was starting to rain and it was getting too late. The signs said that the walk to the lake was about an hour. We decided we would go in the morning. When morning arrived, we packed up and headed to the lake. This time in the car. It was a nice walk. There were monsters in the forrest, though. They kept jumping out from behind trees trying to scare us.
Close to the lake, Scott saw a bird that followed us for a while. We figured that it was used to people feeding it. A friend suggested that it was after any insects that we stirred up as we walked.
After our walk we started our journey home. It was fairly uneventful. We stopped to get fruit and juice in Cromwell and we visited Felton Road and Mt Difficulty wineries.
