New Zealand's south island revisited, part 2

Following on from the last post, we continued on our merry way round the south island. We start this part of the tour at a transport and toy museum in Wanaka.  Amazing place, with aircraft, cars, toys - you name it, they have it!  We saw this sign in the entrance and wisely kept our mouths closed.

Oh dear......

Dave always wanted a part in Star Wars!

Yours truly on an NSR 50 - a touch small

Martin contemplating faster transport - a MiG

Jennie and I did our courting in a car like this!
A British Wolseley 6/110

A restored Polikarpov at the Wanaka Warbirds base

The spectacular Glenorchy road

At Wanaka, we took a jet boat up the Matukituki River and were met by a helicopter which took us up to Mount Aspiring national park and landed us on a glacier.  The chopper pilot was a gorgeous 25 year old with sublime skills.  The scenery wasn't bad either! As you might expect, a lot of Lord of the Rings was shot in this area.

V8-powered jet boat

River valley from the air.  The water colour comes from
suspended glacial rock particles

Approaching a suspended glacier

The photo below is of a suspended glacier at several thousand feet altitude.  To give an idea of scale, the front glacier face is 75 ft high!

Glacier in Mt Aspiring National Park

Chopper on the edge of the glacier

The 2 photos below are a post-publishing addition. They're for fellow blogger Ken who was disappointed that I hadn't published a photo of Alex, the pilot.  It's a bit hard to tell with her headset and sunglasses still on but you'll have to take my word that she was drop-dead gorgeous!

Transferring from the jet boat to the chopper

Alex, our pilot, is to the right

This photo of Alex was a sort of surreptitious one on the pretext of photographing the scenery.  Better than nothing though Ken!

The lovely Alex

The Clyde Dam just outside Alexandra is a superb piece of engineering, built to withstand major earthquakes.  We were fortunate to be given a tour through it as one of my long distance event riding partners is the production controller there.  It was quite an experience.

The Clyde River

Jennie and me at the Clyde Dam tail race

From Clyde, it was off to Milford Sound, a magnificent road into the Sound, followed by the majesty of the sound itself.  It doesn't matter what the weather is like as the character of the place completely changes - sunny or raining are both superb.  Average annual rainfall at Milford Sound is a staggering 6.8 metres, or nearly 22 feet!!!  At the Sound itself, the scale is so vast that you feel like an ant.

The vast expanse of the Milford Road

Entrance to the Homer Tunnel with temporary waterfalls from the rain

Moody, overpowering Milford Sound

The cliff on the left (Mitre Peak) is a mile high!

Yet more Milford Sound

Minerals and mosses on the Sounds rocks

Heading up the west coast, we came to the Punakaiki Rocks.  These limestone deposits have holes to the sea at their base and at high tide, they blast great fountains of water into the air.  We saw a bus-load of elderly tourists soaked to the skin because they were so busy talking to each other, they weren't paying attention to what was going on.  Honestly, you'd think lots of water running down the path would be a slight clue, wouldn't you?

Punakaiki Rocks

Beautiful city of Nelson cathedral

All tied down on the ferry for the trip home

I hope you've enjoyed parts 1 & 2 of the tour of NZ's south island by bike!  Save your pennies.....