2024 New Zealand: December 28th - Manapouri Hut to Queenstown

We woke up at the late hour of 7am, ate a leisurely breakfast, got rid of all our food, and then stuffed the now much fuller garbage bag into my backpack last after packing everything up. I noticed that the electric toothbrush that Boen and I had been using is down to its last bar, which was no problem since we were going to be done hiking today.

We walked down to the lake for one last goodbye and then headed onto the trail. Bowen was determined to get to Rainbow Reach by 10:00am, but I calculated that we’d be there by 9:00am. My secret plan to avoid paying the bus fare was that we’d get to the parking lot, and I’d hike out to the main road and hitch-hike to town to pick up the car and then drive it back to pick up the rest of the family, saving NZ$80 in fees.

The hike along the lake was short and we quickly ran out of sight of the lake, which was a pity. But there was a short side-trip to see the swamp, which we dutifully took, and then the forest resumed its somewhat monotonous character. Knowing that it was only an hour and a half, the kids were motivated to move quickly. We soon got into view of the river, and after that found the divergence between the control gates path and the walk to rainbow reach. Nobody volunteered to walk all the way back to Te Anau, even though it was only another 3.5 hours away.

Crossing that last suspension bridge across the river, we reached the bus stop just as a ranger was there clearing out the toilet. “The bus will be here at 10:00am but if you’re in a hurry you can just hike to the road, 20 minutes that way.” I put down the pack and said goodbye to the rest of the family, meaning to beat the ranger’s time since I didn’t have a pack!

While not having a pack made things light, the gravel road was a pain to walk on, with the rocks on it slipping every time you took a step. It didn’t take me 15 minutes to get to the main road. However, traffic was light, and no cars came for about 10 minutes in the direction I was going. The first car was an RV, which didn’t even slow down, but you don’t expect vacationers to pick up hitchhikers. The second was a small car, which dutifully stopped, and it turned out to be the husband of a park ranger who was stationed on the Milford track. “I make it a point to pick up every hitchhiker I see at Rainbow Reach.”

He not only drove me to Te Anau, but he also dropped me off within 100m of our rental car, which was exactly where I parked it. The car started up with no problems and I drove back to Rainbow Reach, where I’d arrived before the bus. One of the other hikers we’d met asked if he could hitch a ride with us, and I pointed out sadly that I’d rented the smallest possible car and it was full. (I suppose I could have strapped him to the roof)

In any case, the shuttle bus passed us driving the other way as we left the Rainbow Reach parking lot, so he saved a lot of time by not hitching a ride with us. We drove to Manapouri, for a view of the lake from the other side from the hut and then drove back to Te Anau to Miles’ Better Pies again for lunch, buying drinks from the supermarket across the street. When I went to the public bathroom, I noted that they offered showers for people who’d come off the Kepler track (for a fee of course)!

Before driving back to Queenstown, we paid a visit to the Te Anau Lions Lookout Point, with gorgeous views across Te Anau Lake. It was surrounded by sheep farms and was well worth a stop. It also looked like RVs had camped out there overnight as well. I made the drive back to Queenstown slowly, this time, stopping at every viewpoint at Lake Wakatipu. We also stopped for gas before driving into Sherwood Queenstown hotel. I didn’t even remember why we picked the hotel, except that we’d gotten notice that the hotel now had new management and to reconfirm our booking. To our dismay, our rooms weren’t ready when we arrived, so we had to find something else to do.

A look at the internet showed that KiwiPark Queenstown had Kiwis, and so we drove there for a visit. I expected very little from the park, but it turned out to be small but quite well-done, and educational for me! For instance, I’d always thought that I’d seen Kiwis in the wild on my last visit to New Zealand. However, the Kiwi exhibit and the lecturer taught me that what I’d see were Buff Weka, a different species that wasn’t nocturnal. Given that Kiwis were Nocturnal, I wasn’t like to be able to see one!

With that visit over, we went back to the hotel and got ourselves checked in, making reservations for dinner as well. The hotel room was small, and didn’t have AC, so I had to go back and beg for a fan. I noticed other guests asking for milk, and upon inquiry discovered that the hotel had a “unlimited free milk policy.” Not being a dummy, I asked for both oat milk and regular milk for the rest of the trip. I bought tokens for the laundry machines, and we got a load started. I also asked for 2 fans. One of them was delivered right away, but the other would take a while as they had to dig them out of storage. The hotel staff looked at me strangely. “Why do you want fans?” “It’ll be too hot to sleep!” “It’s always cold in New Zealand!” “I’m from Singapore. I’ve got enough heat to last a lifetime.” They stopped arguing and gave me the fans.

The food at Sherwood Queenstown was outstanding. We ordered 4 dishes to share and each of them were well done. I finally remembered why I’d made reservations. It turned out that this hotel was famous for its food, and even non-guests would eat here! In fact, it was so busy that getting reservations for dinner was hard even for guests! We would not bother eating anywhere else for dinner for our 3 nights there. Bowen wanted to explore every part of the menu, and we ate pretty well for our entire stay. The food was cheap too, considering the exchange rates and made up for the less-than-ideal rooms. The staff also told me that if you booked the hotel directly from the hotel website, you would get 20% of the price of your stay credited against any dining costs! “Don’t book on booking.com, book from us directly!” chanted the staff.

Occasionally when trying to get service (e.g., more laundry tokens) I’d run into other guests, and we’d all complain about how hard it was to get service. But looking back on the experience, the housekeeping and everything was actually pretty good, and the prices for laundry, etc were reasonable. The hotel even supplied all the detergent you needed. So, it was a pretty decent place to stay. To make things even better, it started raining that night and that cooled things enough that the fans were sufficient to let us sleep well.