A shorter journey today, down the 6 to Queenstown. This does involve travelling alongside some rather scary sheer drops. There are plenty more vineyards along this route. Queenstown is by far the largest settlement we have encountered since Christchurch. Although we have a map of the town centre, this does not include the road in which the campsite is situated. Reasoning that Arthur’s Pass Road, Queenstown, should be somewhere between Queenstown and Arthur’s Pass, we head out beyond the town, in search of the site. Our suppositions are vindicated and we locate the site without much trouble.

There is a shuttle bus back in to town but it is just that, a town, so instead we stroll along the banks of the Shotover River in the Morningstar Reserve. There is some adrenaline inducing powerboat racing going on but we decide to leave that for another day. That would be another day in the very distant future. In the 1860s, the Shotover River was known a ‘the richest river in the world’ because of the gold workings, discovered by the Redfern brothers. Today’s gold dredges are based on the bucket dredge design that was pioneered here by Chinese Sew Hoy. By 1906, the easily accessible gold had been worked, so the Oxenbridge brothers and others spent three years and £10,000 creating a 170 metre tunnel to divert the river, thus giving them access to a new area of former river bed. They must have been a bit jolly annoyed to discover that they had miscalculated and when they broke through the tunnel, it was four metres too high. Their attempts to build a dam to raise the water were largely unsuccessful and their huge investment yielded just £600 worth of gold. We spent the late afternoon relaxing in the van, also known as ‘pacing ourselves’.

Our luck with the weather has finally run out and the rain begins during the night. There is a slight detour finding our way out of Queenstown but soon we are heading south on the 6 beside what we can see of Lake Wakatipu through the mist and rain. At appropriate points, we politely pull over to allow faster traffic to pass us, occasionally we even get an acknowledgement. Chris is keeping up a campaign of trying to get other camper drivers to wave to him as they pass. Although this is common practice in Britain, he isn’t having much success here.

We arrive at our destination, Te Anau. It seems very pleasant from the van but it really is too wet to explore properly. We pay a short visit to the visitors’ centre; somewhat shorter than we’d have liked! On realising the displays look interesting and we may want to stay a while, we repair to the adjoining toilets for a very brief ‘comfort stop’. In the half minute that this takes us, the centre has closed! We have purchased an umbrella before our departure, designed to protect us from inclement weather. We got this cheap in a discount store near us. We have got what we paid for. It is a bit of a shame that we didn’t realise that said umbrella does not have any visible means of being fixed in the open position. Nonetheless, a slight cessation in the downpour sees us venture out for a quick trip round the block on the hunt for souvenirs. Whilst sheltering in the information centre we hear the news that the Milford Road is to be closed tomorrow due to forecast bad weather. This is very disappointing as it was to be one of our special trips. Sure enough, a knock on the camper van door in the evening sends Chris, who was in a state of undress, hurriedly making himself in a fit state to greet the reception team, who confirm that tomorrow’s trip has indeed been cancelled. We don’t really have the wriggle room to rearrange this, which is a shame. There is some good news, we have rediscovered the missing shampoo down the back of a cupboard!