Te Anau, New Zealand

It was a slower start this morning, perhaps having had too much fun yesterday evening. We walked over to the bakery attached to Oliver’s (where we had dinner yesterday) to get some baked goods. We also bought some sandwiches for lunch, and granola, in case the gluten-free granola we bought earlier was also taste-free.

We ate on the little bistro table outside our little bnb. Between the yogurt and granola and fruit and pastry, we ate pretty good. Heather made herself a French press coffee, I had a tea. Unfortunately so far in NZ, tea has meant teabags and no teapot, which isn’t my cup of tea.

We were packed up and on the road exactly at 10am. Once again we really enjoyed the ease of packing up with the extra space in a car.

We retraced our route to Cromwell, connecting back up with our favourite Highway 6. There was considerably more traffic as we approached Queenstown. The highway turns south before entering town, but even there had the distinct feel of suburbia. From a tourist standpoint, Queenstown is more about adventure sports like white water rafting and bungee jumping, and not really our thing. We had decided to skip here when we did our planning, even though it seemed like half the Lonely Planet was the Queenstown chapter (maybe a bit of literary license on my part).

Anyways we were glad to finally turn south and see all the traffic melt away.

We drove through a few small towns which looked like they had a bit of character. Had our packed sandwiches at a roadside rest stop near Lowther.

We stopped for a coffee in Mossburn. I had intended to stop at Bracken Hall, which rated 4.6 on Google Maps, but instead mistakenly pulled in at the cafe before it, Dome Cafe. We ordered a slice of apricot cake based on the reviews for Bracken Hall. Fortunately for us, Done Cafe also knows their apricot cakes.

It was only 45 minutes to Te Anau from Mossburn. The drive changed back to farmland and some tall hedges again (similar to outside Christchurch).

We arrived at High Leys Lodge around 3pm. It’s a small bnb with just three rooms. Our room faced Lake Te Anau with the Southern Alps rising in the background. Yet another place with an amazing view (great job by our travel agent).

We’re here for four nights so spread our our stuff. The room had my new favourite thing in a hotel room, two luggage racks. It’s one of the longer stays we have in NZ, there’s three excursions we wanted to do (Milford Sound, Doubtful Sound and the Glowworm Caves).

We had dinner in town at Redcliff Cafe. We had made reservations for all four nights in Te Anau based on recommendations from our host, Sarah. Redcliff is her favourite.

Dinner was pretty good, with fancy meals. Heather had the salmon with gnocchi; I tried the ribeye steak. The hit was the gnocchi. It’s also the only town where we have to drive for dinner; so instead I got a bottle of craft beer from the local Bottle-O to drink back at the bnb.

It was a mostly cloud-free evening, perfect for watching the sunset, having a beer and trying to catch up in my blog.