It’s a really cold morning, so cold that puddles in the park are frozen, so the kids have a ball breaking the ice. Fortunately no major mishaps and no one falls in.
Cold?
We drive into Queenstown and over to the Skyline, a gondola ride to the top of Ben Lomond. Fortunately we’re here early and can find a reasonable car parking spot. I can tell you in a 7.2mtr motor home, that’s not always an easy thing.
We pay way too much for our tickets, have the obligatory photo taken “that will be available at the gift shop on the way out” and start our ride up the mountain. Wow is it steep, and I’m not really that keen on heights.
Anyway once at the top the view is sensational, it such a beautiful place. Although we need to be careful when walking outside as the paths are really icy. A coffee at the top and after a while we’re done and it’s time to go back down.
Once back at the bottom…..we pay for our photo!…. Then outside, I’m so glad we arrived when we did, the place is now packed and any chance of a carpark anywhere nearby would be impossible.
While I like Queenstown, it’s just too busy for me and I can’t wait to get out of here. We’re sitting in the van trying to work out what to do next. Do we stay here in Queenstown or move on, and if we move where do we head? About 10 cars stop to see if we’re leaving, they are all disappointed!
Finally we agree we’ll move on, Queenstown is just not for us, certainly not on this trip. We start heading south towards Te Anau to do the Milford Sound trip.
As we’re heading south by Lake Wakatipu, I can see that the Snow line seems to be getting lower and lower. When we reach Kingston at the bottom of the lake, the snow is only 20 or so metres up the sides of the hills, a little bit further on and there is snow in the fields. We pull off at an old railway station called Fairlight, but the snow is pretty mushy, so we carry on. A few KM later we pull into this very small town of Garston with a little playground. We’ve hit heaven…..
The playground is covered in about 5-10cms of fresh snow. We get the kids into their snow gear, which is now worth every cent. Shortly after we get out of the van the snow starts to fall, these huge fluffy snowflakes, and we’re in wonderland. I don’t think any of us have seen snow falling, not like this anyway. It’s magical and we all have a ball for a while, words can’t really describe it. We visit the old pub across the road, it’s just a café now and we have a nice lunch. The young guy there tell us that while it may be snowing here that does not mean it is everywhere. After lunch the kids have another play, chasing each other, rolling around, making snow angels, making snowmen and generally just having a ball, sadly however after a couple of hours eventually we have to leave. We got so lucky with the timing here. It was such a special day. Sure enough about 15km later and there is not a sign of snow.
We hoped we’d see snow on this trip, hell we bought snow gear, but this was just so much better than we expected. Hopefully it will be something the kids will remember for a long time.
We head towards Te Anau which is the gateway to Milford Sound and the town has it sewn up. There are no campground free or otherwise anywhere near the place, and the caravan parks require a two night stay, ah well, we’re here.
I‘ve heard the drive into Milford can be tight and there can be black ice in winter, so we elect to do a tour rather than try and drive the motorhome in. We find a company that does small tours with a max of 15, so rather than a coach load. Fortunately they have spots so we’re booked in for tomorrow.