Another moving day, to Queenstown, for a rendezvous with John and Martha who are extending their visit to NZ after their Sydney to Auckland cruise. The day started in Te Anau with rain and clouds and it didn’t start breaking up until we got close to Queenstown.

As the clouds lifted, the mountain tops are revealed with a dusting of snow!

We met John & Martha at their hotel near the airport at about 9:30am, early enough to get into Queenstown proper and find a parking spot! We ended up having to walk uphill to our first stop, Kiwi Park Queenstown, a wildlife sanctuary in the middle of the resort/adventure capital town!

A medley of scenes from Kiwi Park, a huge Sequoia tree, very plump keruru, the NZ wood pigeon, and the red-crowned parakeet, kakariki. Back in December we were in a town called Kakariki on the North Island, named for the parakeet that is no longer found there.

We walked back down the hill and got our lunch at a bakery, the iconic meat pies that we ate out of the paper bags they come in, on a bench on the street, a true Kiwi experience! Walking along the lakefront we had our picture taken by a trio of fellow Americans.

A beautiful day compared to the previous rainy, windy, cold day Robert & I stopped in Queenstown, Jan. 23, for a Fergburger!

We walked through the Queenstown Gardens on a small peninsula extending into Lake Wakatipu with great views of the Remarkables, the mountain range to the southeast.

On the lake we saw the steamship TSS Earnslaw, an iconic Queenstown veteran! Following behind is a boat pulling a parasail, another Queenstown adventure!

We finished the afternoon with drinks on Perky’s Floating Bar before Robert & I checked into our hotel and we finished the day with dinner and dessert at a restaurant near our respective hotels.

Dessert; stout beers for John & I!

Today is a rainy day, good for packing for our next move. A good time to catch up on posts too. Yesterday after our lakefront hike we got back to the Airbnb and cleaned up to go out for our last night in town. We chose to go to the Black Dog Bar and adjacent Fiordland Cinema.

Walking distance from the B&B!

We ordered a cheese and meat plate, and ended up having it for dinner it was so much!

We weren’t able to finish our platter before the movie started. We wanted to see the local production of “Deer Wars”. Our waitress/bartender said that’s okay, you can make a plate to take into the theater with your drinks too! When we settled into our seats (we were the only ones there) she proceeded to the projection room to start the film, woman of many talents!

Cushy, comfortable seats with little tables!

Since we got to Fiordland we have heard about NZ’s ‘Deer Wars’ of the 60’s, 70’s and into the 80’s. Our introduction to the history was on our Doubtful Sound Cruise when the skipper told us about “blokes that bulldogged deer by jumping out of helicopters onto the deer, in the surrounding mountains”. We were incredulous, but he pulled up some video on his laptop to show us. First of all, the mountains here are incredibly steep, secondly, deer in NZ, and in these mountains? Red deer were introduced into NZ in the late 1800’s for sport hunting and quickly overran the country to the point that the government had a cadre of deer cullers after WW2 that instituted the tramping hut system throughout the country. Yet it still was not enough to stop the ecological disaster that the deer wrought. Until…some smart bloke in the 60’s said shoot them from a helicopter!

Highly maneuverable helicopters were first used in deer hunting in 1969.

Helicopters were useful especially in the mountains where deer congregated above the tree line. Eventually they decided to take the door off so the shooter has better maneuverability and can jump out, cut the tails off for bounty and jump back on. Then they thought, we’re leaving valuable meat on the mountain, why not use the helicopter to haul the dead deer off the mountain, process it and sell it!

A helicopter hauling the deer carcasses down the mountains.

It was a resounding success with the value of the deer meat soaring. The herds were reduced so much so that poaching ensued and competition spawned fights that eventually the air force was called in to quell. The evolution to the ‘deer farming’ scheme followed; why kill the deer, why not catch them live, bring them to the valley and manage them to create an export resource! Hence the bulldogging, to catch live deer to haul off the mountains!

Crazy Kiwi deer bulldogger!

A complete history of the evolution of deer farming in NZ is HERE. The show was so good that we stayed for the next show “Ata Whenua” which was even more fascinating, an aerial (by helicopter) tour of Fiordlands, with a group of Roads Scholars that joined us! On a sidenote, when we boarded the small helicopter for our quick flight to Luxemore hut for our Kepler Track hike, I asked the pilot if he was a veteran of the Deer Wars, he said YES, so I knew we were safe because he survived the Deer Wars! It turns out that the Cinema and Bar were built by Kim Hollows the owner of Fiordland Helicopters and a veteran of the Deer Wars!

A beautiful day lay ahead of us so we decided to go for a walk, retracing some of Robert’s walk yesterday. We drove the mile through town to the lakefront and Robert dropped me off at the Bird Sanctuary while he started on the lakefront walk. The star of the Bird Sanctuary is the Takahe, a large chicken sized flightless bird that was thought extinct until 1948 when a small population was found high in the Murchison Mountains across Lake Te Anau! They have been very well protected since and are being raised in captivity at several sites around NZ to be released back to the wild. Check web post Dec. 19, 2023 for a good picture of the Takahe we saw at Zealandia! I couldn’t get a good picture, so here’s one from the reader board.

They have several pairs of breeding birds that are kept away from the public.

I finished my tour of the bird sanctuary and started on the lakefront trail to catch Robert at our meeting point. The first half of the trail is on the open, sunny side of the lake, along a golf course. I was able to get a good picture of the NZ Cabbage Tree which we’ve seen throughout the islands. It looks almost like a sturdy yucca, but is no relation.

The cabbage tree was an important resource for the Maori and European settlers alike, being used for food, fibre and medicine!

At the dam that controls the outflow of Lake Te Anau into the Waiau river the landscape changes to the beech forest with thick fern undergrowth at the base of the Fiordland mountain ranges. There is another trail, the Lake2Lake Trail, along the Waiau river which connects Lake Te Anau with Lake Manapouri, no time for that trail today though.

It was nice and cool under the trees, with streams and creeks flowing down out of the mountains into the crystal clear pebbly-bottomed lake.

The trail we were on is the Kepler Trail that we hiked part of just 6 days ago! We met at a picnic area and retraced our hike back to the Bird Sanctuary for a full 7 miles today!

Along the way we enjoyed this view and listened to the melodious song of the Tui bird perched on the top of the dead tree. If you look close enough you might see the white ‘cotton-ball’ feathers on his throat!

After 4 days of ‘relaxing’ and a surgery, Robert was “Itchy” to get moving so he set out for a walk and ended up walking 8 miles round trip through town and along the edge of Lake Te Anau!

The aerial transport modes! Float plane and helicopter!

The water surface modes of transport, boat, from water taxis to overnight small cruise boats!

For being at the edge of Fiordlands National Park, Te Anau itself is very flat and surrounded by agricultural land, mostly sheep & cattle paddocks, but also herds of red deer kept in ‘deer yards’ for a thriving venison export market. Te Anau actually did not exist as a township until 1953 when the Homer tunnel was completed and the road to Milford Sound was opened to general traffic, making the tourist industry flourish!

We had the opportunity today to learn more about the NZ Healthcare system, and we are very pleased with our encounter. Thank goodness it wasn’t because of an accident or emergency, but we thought it was a good idea to talk to a Dr. about a growth on Robert’s forehead. Robert has had several moles and growths removed in the past couple of years, some cancerous, some benign. This growth came on about 3 months ago, not in evidence when he saw his dermatologist before we left Bend or when we had our photos taken for our International Driver’s Licenses. It seemed to be growing quickly and Robert researched dermatologists in the area. NZ is notorious for intense sun and UV light and they have a healthcare program to educate and screen for skin cancers. We couldn’t book an appointment online, so we decided to call the nearby Te Anau clinic. We had to wait a day because Jan. 6 is a National Holiday, Waitangi Day, to celebrate the signing of the Waitangi Treaty in 1840! When we got hold of them at 8:15am they had an opening at 9:30am! We got there and had a very short wait for a Dr. to look at it. She took pictures to consult with the surgeon, and made an appointment for 3:15pm for removal. We came back at the designated time and were ushered into the ‘operating room/storage room’ and the Dr. came in. After about 40 min. Robert was stitched up and we were heading out the door!

A happy patient! When we left Robert was getting funny sympathetic looks from other patients!

For a total of $651.45 US, Robert got a consultation/exam, surgery, a lab exam of the tissue and a followup the next day! We are awaiting the lab results which will be emailed to us in about 2 weeks.