Diving Thoughts

Sat 22 Nov: We had arranged to go on a tour including a cruise on Doubtful Sound. This is more difficult to get to than Milford Sound as you can’t drive there. It’s also 3 times longer and 10 times larger. We had signed up with Real Journeys and went along to their Manapouri office at 9am.  We started off on a boat across Lake Manapouri, which has 34 islands in it as well as lovely clear water.  It’s the lake we overlooked from where we were staying.

Also heading to Doubtful Sound was a group of divers. It turned out that one of them was quite a senior guy at the hydro-electric power station that we would visit later on. He is an extremely keen diver and keeps a boat moored at Doubtful Sound. At the far end of the lake, we switched to a bus which was to take us over Wilmot Pass. The road was put in to help build the power station, and is in a very remote, but very pretty area.  After a few stops along the way to admire the views we came to Deep Cove on Doubtful Sound, where we boarded a large boat. It was overcast and raining intermittently, but it had rained heavily overnight.  As a result, the waterfalls were flowing down the steep hillsides.

The hills surrounding Doubtful Sound were not quite as steep or dramatic as those at Milford Sound, but the area was obviously much larger and much more remote and isolated.  It was still spectacular and beautiful, but in a slightly softer way. Again, we were lucky enough to see fur seals and more of the Fiordland Crested Penguins.

Everywhere we looked were waterfalls tumbling down the hillsides into the fiord. Most of these waterfalls are apparently temporary, only appearing after there has been rain. In addition to a very informative nature commentary by the guides, the boat also showed a number of videos, including underwater footage of the marine life in the fiords. Next time we will have to dive there.

After 3 hours on the boat, we headed back to Deep Cove, where the buses were waiting. We headed back up to Wilmot Pass and took a detour to the Manapouri Power Station. There is a steep access tunnel leading down to the control room. This is the only road in New Zealand where you drive on the right. This is either because it allows you to see more clearly how close you are to the rock; or because it’s easier to teach Kiwis to drive on the right than to teach the American contractors (who helped build it) to drive on the left!

The power station was a large undertaking that was actually built by an Australian company. It was part of a deal to allow them to build an aluminium smelter, and it provides the power for the smelter, as well as making a small contribution to the national grid.

From the power station, we headed back across Lake Manapouri, where we had a good chat about the Department of Conservation with one of the guides, who had actually trained as a marine biologist, and so was very well informed about the local environment. He also had some interesting views on various conservation projects around New Zealand and the importance of getting buy-in from the local communities.

We had dinner in the same pub as the previous night, and managed to finish trying the rest of the 8 beers they had on tap.

Fri 21 Nov: Fiordland gets so much rain that they measure it in metres. Typically it gets between 7 and 9 metres per year, so we were expecting a fairly damp day. But our good fortune continued. It started overcast as we headed to the Humboldt Falls but by the time we got to Milford Sound it was another beautiful day. The Humboldt Falls are supposedly the tallest falls near a road, and are approximately 270 metres high. It was about a 20 minute walk up to a viewing platform.

From there we headed to Milford Sound. We had to stop at The Homer Tunnel as it is only wide enough for one lane of traffic, but there were a number of Kea there to entertain us. These are New Zealand parrots and are quite cheeky and didn’t seem scared of people. I suppose they perform for all the tour buses in the hope of picking up food.  They are quite stocky compared to the more tropical parrots, which presumably helps them keep warm.

For those of us used to nice, well-lit, smooth tunnels, The Homer Tunnel is a bit of a revelation. To start with it’s over 1km long and is not lit at all. But more noticeable to me, it’s not at all smooth. What I mean by that is that it’s been hacked out of the bare rock and it’s not been lined unlike the tunnels in Hong Kong. I suppose it makes sense, it just wasn’t what I was expecting. Nor was the spectacular view as we emerged from the other side and headed down the steep road towards Milford Sound itself.

We parked and walked along the coast and out onto the mudflats. The Sounds in this region are actually misnamed, as they are Fiords. The distinction is that Sounds are V-shaped river valleys which fill up with sea water up as the sea level rises. Fiords are created by glaciers gouging their way through the countryside and leaving U-shaped valleys in their wake. These fiords have very steep walls and can also be very deep. What makes this particular area so interesting is that the heavy rainfall means there is a constant layer of fresh water on top of the salt water. When it rains the trees absorb the water, and it gradually leaches out and into the fiords. But on its way it picks up a lot of tannins, which means it has a reddy colour and this helps to block out a lot of the sunlight. Consequently the salt water below it is very dark, which means that you get a lot of deep-dwelling species of coral and fish at a much shallower depth than usual. Also the narrow, deep nature of the fiords means that there is very little sediment and the water tends not to be churned up, so it is usually very clear. We didn’t have time to dive it, but we did visit an underwater observatory, of which more later.

Lunch involved the usual New Zealand pie, to which we were starting to get addicted. Then we wandered through the town to the pier and decided to do a cruise of Milford Sound. From the water the surrounding mountains and sea cliffs looked even more impressive. We were also lucky enough to see New Zealand Fur Seals, and Fiordland Crested penguins.

We were on a relatively small boat and the skipper was also a diver. So we spent quite a bit of time chatting to  him about diving in the Fiordland area. Not surprisingly, he is a big fan and thoroughly recommends the diving in this region. Maybe next time, but only if I’ve got a drysuit! Anyway he was a really interesting character and he was brave enough to let Rita drive his boat.

He dropped us off at the Underwater Observatory at Harrison Cove, where they gave us more information on the way the area formed, and repeated the information about the freshwater layer on top of the sea water, as well as the marine life that lives in the fiords. We then went downstairs to the viewing platform which is at a depth of 10 metres. In various trays you could see black and red coral, which normally lives much deeper. There are also sponges, anemones, tube worms, snake stars, plus a variety of fish. In case of storms, or if the freshwater layer gets too thick, they are able to lower the trays containing the coral. The overnight forecast was for heavy rain, so they were concerned about the freshwater layer, and also whether they would be able to get in the following day. So as a precaution they did lower the trays as we were leaving (we were the last group). Then another boat picked us up and took us back to the town.

We drove back out in the late afternoon, stopping briefly at some of the impressive sites, including Mirror Lake. Finally we ended up in Manapouri, where we stayed at a great place right next to a lively pub. Of the 8 beers on tap, I think we sampled at least 5.

Thu 20 Nov: We headed down to the lakefront to the bar / cafe at the station to see if they did breakfast and got a bit of a surprise. Having seen the steam engines for the Kingston Flyer in the yard the previous night, we suddenly found ourselves facing an entire train. It turns out that it runs 14km up the track to Fairlie every morning at 10am, and by chance we happened to get there 5 minutes before it left. It was even more impressive in action than it had been in the yard, particularly as it was a beautiful morning with a clear, blue sky.

After a good breakfast we headed south, but after quarter of an hour we saw smoke in the distance. Sure enough we were passing Fairlie, and the Flyer had turned round and was on its way back to Kingston. So from not even knowing it existed, we were fortunate enough to see it setting off on both legs of its journey. Rita even managed to get some video of it.

We had a lot of driving pencilled in for today so we pressed on towards Te Anau, which is the gateway to Fiordland. From there we were planning to head towards Milford Sound which is around 120km away. We got to Te Anau around lunchtime, and stocked up on food, wine and beer from the supermarket. Petrol prices were a little more than I’d been expecting and we’d been warned not to try filling up in Milford Sound, but I thought we had enough left to get there and back. I did find myself driving very conservatively to make sure we didn’t run out, which had the added bonus of giving us more chance to admire the scenery.

First stop along the road to Milford Sound was Mistletoe Lake, where we had a circular nice walk down to the lakeshore. We stopped at a number of other places along the way including Mirror Lake, which are best seen in the evening or early morning when the wind has dropped. Then you can see why it got its name. Even in early afternoon the water was very clear and you could see trout swimming lazily along below the surface. We also stopped for a walk at Lake Gunn, through a lovely beech forest. We crossed the divide then took a right turn towards Humboldt Falls, which are apparently the tallest falls that are near a road, a bit of a contrived claim to fame, but they were impressive despite that.

Along the road to Humboldt falls is the Hollyford camp. This was set up by a guy called Murray Gunn, the son of Davy Gunn, a legend in those parts. He was one of the early farmers, but he also mapped the area and was a pioneer in establishing a tourism industry. He was most famous for a 20 hour journey he made in 1936 to raise the alarm about a plane crash, which led to the four survivors being rescued. Given how rugged the country is, completing his trek in 20 hours was a remarkable achievement. He was killed fording a river on Christmas Day in 1955. The Hollyford camp has a small museum with details of his life and times, as well as a lot of artefacts and newspaper clippings relating to the region and the pioneers who lived there.

We pitched out tents and cooked dinner surrounded by clouds of sand flies, which are a type of black fly and they have a nasty bite. They are the worst aspect of Fiordland. When it finally went dark, we trekked down the road and found a small glowworm dell. New Zealand has a number of areas where you find glowworms. They lower silken threads, like fishing rods, and through a chemical reaction they are able to generate a light from their backsides (so the light really does shine out of their arses). This attracts insects which they catch on the silken threads, providing their food.

Hooker Valley Swing bridge

Wed 19 Nov: The noise of the wind almost blowing the flysheet away meant we didn’t have a great night’s sleep in the tent, and we got up to a cloudier day. After a quick breakfast we headed off on the Hooker Valley trail towards the the Hooker glacier and Mt. Cook. It was cold with occasional showers, but the scenery was still spectacular.

The trail itself crosses the river leading down from the glacier to Lake Pukaki twice via swing bridges. It was a very pleasant, although windy, walk, up to a small lake below the glacier, in which there were several large chunks of ice, which had presumably broken off. It was around 2 hours each way. We even came across some Mt. Cook Lilies, which are a type of buttercup that are only supposed to grow in this region, although we did spot some near Doubtful Sound later in the week. After getting back to the car, we headed further south towards Queenstown.

Ultimately we decided to press on to Kingston rather than stay in Queenstown, and we found a nice clean cabin at a holiday park.  It was nearly 8pm, so we quickly headed down the road to the pub by the old station. I hadn’t realised that Kingston is home to the Kingston Flyer, which is a steam train that has been restored, and 2 engines were locked up in the yard for the night, looking immaculate.  We took a couple of pictures then went to get a beer and some food.

The pub was a nice place with several locals in there, but I got the impression that if we hadn’t come in, they would have closed it because the guys at the bar kept asking if it was last orders yet. Unfortunately no-one offered to buy us beer to keep the place open a bit longer, so at around 9:30 we left. It had only just gone dark. These long Spring/Summer evenings are something you forget about when you live nearer the tropics.

Tue 18 Nov: After getting up at some ridiculous hour in the morning and driving to Auckland airport, we found ourselves on a 06:10 flight to Christchurch. It was a bit cloudy over the North Island, but as we got further south the cloud lifted, and as we flew over Nelson we had a fantastic view of the Abel Tasman park and Marlborough Sounds.

Lake Pukaki and the Southern Alps

We got into Christchurch on time at 07:30, picked up a hire car and headed further south. We stopped in Ashburton for breakfast and to pick up some camping gas and then carried on to Peel Forest. We did a couple of interesting walks here. First for a couple of hours through the forest. The second was much shorter and went to a totara tree with a circumference of over 9 metres.

We carried on driving to Lake Tekapo, which has great views across a turquoise lake towards the snowy peaks of the Southern Alps. The colour of the lake is quite bizarre and is caused by ‘rock flour’ in the water. This is sediment that was created when the lake was gouged out by a stony-bottomed glacier moving across the land. The rocks ground out fine particles which are suspended in the glacial melt water, giving the water a milky quality which refracts the sunlight. Lake Pukaki has the same brilliant blue colour. Unfortunately photos don’t really do it justice. Or perhaps I’m not a very good photographer!There is a lovely little church at Lake Tekapo, the Church of the Good Shepherd, which was built in 1935.

We pressed on along the banks of Lake Pukaki and on to Mt. Cook, where we pitched our tent at the White Horse Hill Department of Conservation (DOC) campground just below Mount Sefton. That cost us NZD 5 per person.  As you can see from the photo, the view from the tent was spectacular and it was a lovely clear evening.  We cooked dinner and drank a bottle of red wine then turned in for the night. The stars were remarkably clear as there was no background light or light pollution for miles around. Overnight the wind picked up significantly and it did turn cold, but it was a beautiful place to stay and very convenient for the hiking trails around there.

Aucklands green and pleasant land

Mon 17 Nov: Audkland is known as the City of Sails, and there certainly are a lot of boats. Although we were walking along the waterfront, so perhaps that’s not surprising. There’s quite a lot of reference to the America’s Cup, and a nice maritime museum. There’s also an Irish pub which we were forced to drink beer in while sheltering from the rain. We wandered around part of the business district before going up the Sky Tower to get an overview of the city. At 328 metres high, it is apparently the tallest tower in the southern hemisphere, and you do get a good view from there, even on a dull, rainy day.

We had dinner with Greg (a former SCDC member), and his family. He’s married to a Taiwanese Kiwi and they have a 1 year old son. It was a good evening, washed down with New Zealand beer and red wine.

Sun 16 Nov:

Boats at Tutukaka

Cousteau rated them among the best 10 divesites in the world. I don’t have his broad experience, but I was pretty impressed with the Poor Knights.  We were diving with Dive! Tutukaka and they wanted us at the dive shop to do all the paperwork and kit us out at 8am in time for the boat to leave at 8:30am. Half an hour seemed a bit optimistic to me since neither of us had brought anything more than a swimming costume and a dive computer. But they were incredibly efficient, and everything was done in fifteen minutes, leaving us plenty of time to go and get some of the fantastic New Zealand pies for breakfast.

The skipper did a very thorough yet entertaining briefing and we set off on a 45 minute ride out to the islands. There was a slight pause for us to look at a pod of dolphins, but before long we were at the first dive site, Brady’s Corner.

Since the 2 of us were a little more experienced than some of the others on board, the dive guides were happy for us to dive by ourselves. We kitted up in unfamiliar 7mm 2 piece wetsuits and were soon ready to go. We followed a wall down to 25 metres and within 5 minutes we’d seen 2 stingrays and an eagle ray. The topography was really interesting and the water was pretty clear – much better than Hong Kong, although that’s not saying much. The scorpion fish here are huge, and there are lots of nudibranchs, as well as a large variety of fish, some familiar to us like trevallies and triggerfish, and some not so familiar. Temperature was around 16C., not as bad as I had feared, but considerably colder than I’m used to these days. And my wetsuit was flushing a bit, so I felt it worse than Rita. Or perhaps I’m just more of a wimp.

World's biggest sea cave

While we ate lunch, we got a tour of the islands, including a huge sea cave, which easily swallowed our large boat, and had plenty of room for more boats. Some of the arches were also very impressive. The islands themselves are a marine and nature reserve and no-one is allowed to land on the islands, apart from a few scientists. As a result their isolation species have evolved differently, and insects and plants have grown larger.There is a good section on their biodiversity on Dive! Tutukaka’s website.

There used to be Maori inhabitants until around 1820 when there was a massacre there. Afterwards the islands were declared “tapu”, which means sacred, and they have been uninhabited ever since. Again, you can read more about their history on Dive! Tutukaka’s website.

Second dive was at Jan’s Tunnel. We swam out first to a series of pinnacles, before heading back in to the tunnel itself. This leads inside the island and comes up in an open area where the cave roof has fallen in. On our way back out we passed a massive school of tiny fish hiding in the tunnel. There were also some nice moray eels, goat fish and a large grouper. But the topography was what impressed me the most. Yet again, the temperature was what impressed me the least. The hot soup we had when we got back was very well received.

Underneath the Arches...

On the whole I was very impressed with Dive! Tutukaka, and I would dive with them again. Although I might take a drysuit next time! 2 dives with full gear hire cost NZD 225.

So why are they called the Poor Knights? They were named by Captain Cook, and it may have been because they looked like a dead knight lying on his back. But another theory is that from a distance they apparently resembled a bread-based dish called Poor Knights Pudding, which existed around the time of their discovery.

After we got back from the diving, we drove down to Auckland and stayed at the Parnell Inn, and had dinner at a lovely Indian restaurant in Parnell. Another great day.

Whangarei Falls

Rather belatedly some blog entries relating to my recent trip to New Zealand with Rita.

On Fri 14 November after the traditional last minute panics, I managed to get out of the office and to the Airport Express at 2pm. We’d checked in at the station that morning to save time.  We flew out at 4pm on Singapore Airlines, arriving in Singapore at 7:40. The next leg was a 9pm flight to Auckland. I don’t recall flying Singapore Airlines before, but I’d certainly recommend them. I can’t speak about their value as I used some Star Alliance air miles that I accumulated years ago when I was travelling a bit working for Citibank. The service was great and the air crew were helpful and friendly. I had planned to sleep on the way down so as to be fresh enough to drive when I got to Auckland, but the on board entertainment system and free drinks soon put paid to that idea. So I arrived bleary-eyed in Auckland at 11:50am local time.

We hired a car at the airport from Omega Rental Cars. Our destination was Tutukaka, which is the jumping off point for the Poor Knights, which Cousteau rated as one of the top ten dive sites in the world. Pausing only to take a digital photo of the car (specifically the number plate so I’d be able to remember which one it was), we headed north. We decided to take the pretty route, up the north-west coast before cutting inland and across to the east coast near Whangarei. The weather was great and the scenery better. The countryside around Whangarei looks a lot like Derbyshire where my family is from. Similar hills, green farmland and, bizzarely, dry stone walls. The main difference was that the stone cottages were replaced by wooden houses, but apart from that it all seemed very familiar.

We stopped at the 26 metre high Whangarei falls, and finally arrived at Tutukaka at around 7:30pm. We went posh for the first night by renting a cabin with an en-suite bathroom for NZD 75 at the Tutukaka Holiday Park. Tutukaka is a lovely little, picturesque place with one main street alongside a harbour packed with boats. We had dinner was at the Schnappa Rock, a pub along the waterfront, and right next to Dive! Tutukaka, who we would be diving with on the following day. I chose them because fellow SCDC member Andy Niven dived with them during his visit.

It was a beautiful Spring evening and a good start to the trip.

Been a bit quiet recently as I was away in New Zealand for a fortnight.  Anyone who’s been will be able to tell you that it’s a stunningly beautiful country. I had a great time and it was a bit of a shock to come back to Hong Kong. It was a lovely sunny day with a clear blue sky when I left Auckland, and it was a sunny day with a clear blue sky when I arrived back at Chek Lap Kok. But the Hong Kong “blue” sky was marred by a brown pall of pollution which we were looking down on as the plane descended. To make matters worse, the denuded Hong Kong hills contrasted with the lush forets I’d been looking at for the previous 2 weeks. I’ve never been quite so depressed returning to Hong Kong.

Anyway I’ll write some updates on NZ over the next couple of weeks. I had a great time and even managed to get a couple of dives in on the Poor Knights.