Te Anau, South Island

A longish drive today from Dunedin to Te Anau today. We went over the six arch concrete bridge over the Clutha river. When the original bridge was built in 1868 it was an engineering feat. Since then it has been rebuilt twice, once when damaged by flood and then again when it became unsuitable for the amount of traffic.
Our lunch stop was Gore a small township where they had a factory using oats but we were unsure what they were making and a older, heritage store.
We arrived at Te Anau which is the largest lake in South Island and the second biggest lake in New Zealand. It was a bit dull and breezy but we were still able to go for a walk around the area before having our evening meal at the hotel. There were people using the water in a range of activities - helicopter flights, sea plane flights and kite surfing. We headed down to the Department of Conservation Visitor Centre and had a wander around the grounds. There’s also a bird sanctuary that specialises in native birds, but we were unable to go round it as it had closed by the time we got there. We topped up with petrol and were able to check timings for tomorrow with the petrol station owner - we were advised to leave early to avoid traffic and allow 2 hours at least for our drive.Read more