Veronika Wild

Entrance to Gunn's Camp - not fancy but interesting Gunn’s Camp deserves a special mention since it was one of my more unusual overnight stops.   It’s an unpretentious collection of small cottages which were built for the families of road workers in the 1930s while the Hollyford Road was being built. After WWII halted the project two years later, they were abandoned and gradually came to be used by holiday makers. Some were also gutted for building materials such as stoves and roofing, because of post war shortages. This is "George" where I spent the night Some of the cottages and the famous gate  In 1951 they were bought by an eccentric pastoralist, Davey Gunn, who began to operate tours for hunters and walkers. After his death in 1955, his son Murray took over and added a few flourishes of his own. By way of  example, he painted one side of his horse in big white letters that said ‘cow' while the other side said ‘hors...

The Mirror Lakes - an obligatory stop on the Milford Road Morning dawns and I follow the crowd through Te Anau Downs, the Eglington Valley, past the Mirror Lakes and to the Divide. The Divide is where a mighty glacier once ploughed down from the Darran Mountains and split into three creating the Eglington, Greenstone and Hollyford valleys. Generally I like to avoid the must –do tourist meccas. In fact, I especially booked the less   -travelled   Doubtful Sound   instead, but as I was doing so the operators threw in a Milford Sound Cruise with their sister company for very little more, so how could I refuse? Besides, a nagging little voice in my head was saying, “How can you come all this way and not see it? It’ll be like going to Paris and not seeing the Eiffel Tower.“ So here I was, following everyone like a sheep. The road is narrow and as usual there really aren’t any other places to stop. The song "You'll never Walk Alone" springs to mind ...

Driving through the Lindis Pass I leave at daybreak the next morning. The road hasn’t been closed, or at least not yet. It leads once again through an epic landscape of bare brown hills and high mountains. This intermontaine basin is called Mackenzie Country and is named after an 1850's cattle rustler. It ends in the 971 metre high Lindis Pass, the third of the three crossings over the mountains, and another one which was well -known to and used by the Maori. There are no listed hostels between Mt. Cook and Queenstown on this route, nor between Queenstown and Te Anau, so I am obliged to spend another night in Wanaka. Looking back the way I have come, you can see how small the cars are. This is one of the few stopping points. There is a monument here to the release of the first seven red deer in 1871. I hear a lot more about them later   I   keep wishing I had a dashcam on this trip as there are so few places to pull over, but looking   at some of th...