Back in Queenstown!! + DAY 4 Active Fiordland

Hejsan, Svejsan!

Arrived in Queenstown yesterday, my plan is to try and find some way to visit some winery's in the area. So far I have just been able to reach Felton Road Viticulturist Gareth King by e-mail, but not by phone. So I'm planning to take the bus to Cromwell tomorrow to have a look around.
For now though I'm just hanging around in the city, which isn't to bad.

Now for the next episode of my trip with Active NZ

DAY 4 Active Fiordland

Morning Started early with some nice scrambled eggs (defiantly in the top three, depending on the eggs :-). Then we where fitted out with Mountain bikes to start biking from Manapouri to Te Auna ( 20 km). We had the option of taking a longer bike ride, but my ass told me that 20 km was just fine.
Instead I went for a "Short Black" (kiwi term for espresso) at the Sandfly Cafè. Re energized after the coffee the bus headed in the direction of Milford Sound. Next event of the day was to hike parts of the famous Rotheburn Trak up to something called Key Summit. Weather was cloudy and little bit foggy but no rain. The hike took some +3 hours up and down, the Forrest's was absolutely beautiful, so was probably also the views but they where partly covered by fog.

After the hike we headed for the Hollyford road to yet again climb on to our bikes. This was a nice mostly downhill bike ride on gravel road, along side the stunning Hollyford river. Unfortunately my camera drank some water out of my water bottle when they spent time together in my backpack. This off course meant that my camera stopped working and went into a state of Cinderella beauty sleep :-(

With the camera not working we immediately got sunny weather and perfect conditions for photographing, + Heep's of things to photograph, what a shame. My travel friends liked it though because it meant that they didn't have to wait up for me while I took photos.

After the bike ride we got back on the bus to drive down to Milford Sound, on the way there we drove through the narrow ca 1,3 km long Homer Tunnel opened in the 50's. Before the tunnel was built you could just get to Milford through the Milford track (walking), by boat, by airplane or helicopter. After exiting the tunnel the confident (as Baz explained) bike riders where in for a nice treat, we got a last ride down the road to Milford sound. This was a steep meander road (=serpentin vag, typ trollstigen) which meant that we easily reached 50-70 km/h on the bikes going down "that was awesome, best bike ride of my life" We all had a big grin on our face when Baz picked us up, by the end of the downhill.

Then we arrived in beautiful Milford sounds didn't get to take any pictures myself but my nice friend Callum Piper took some nice ones that I'm glad to be able to publish on my blog Thank you Callum. After checking in to the hostel we walked down to the "Blus Duck" which was the restaurant where we had dinner, Pasta Bolognese and a pitcher of Beer, life was good i tell you!

That was the end of that very intense day, my camera was resting on the heather with it's battery and memory card removed.
PS. the pictures of me biking is the last ones I managed to take with the camera
See you soon
Martin