to Lake Te Anau

Another exciting day of speed tourism, stopping for the minimum time at the maximum of locations, i've now discovered how people manage to 'see' the whole of New Zealand in 2 weeks and it's not the most pleasurable of experiences.

We squeezed in several more beaches, a stop to make a pendant out of Paua shell and buy souveneirs, a photo opportunity at McCrackens Rest, although we refrained from the Kiwi experience tradition of actually bearing all, and a really great farm visit where we watched sheep dogs at work and actually got to shear part of a sheep. The farmer managed to cut his demonstration sheep quite badly so everyone was really weary of doing the same, it was quite difficult and i can't imagine how the professionals manage to get through over 400 a day during the main shearing season.

Then finally to our next nights accomodation. The Lake Front Backpackers, it sounded good and it was. I was fortunate to get a forward facing room overlooking the lake with a balcony, sitting room, en suite and kitchen just for the 6 of us. A real treat for $25 a night.

We had another great evening together before heading off on our own again. It was great to travel with other folk for a while, we exchanged email addresses and headed off into the filthy wet morning on our own adventures.