Monday, 10 March 2014

The Steepest Road and Arrival in Te Anau (7.03.2014)



First of all, sorry for making you wait for a couple of days for the next entry. The internet situation was rather strange in Te Anau, but let's start at the beginning.

We left that dreadful Backpackers Hostel behind us and decided to not ever do something like this again ;) Before we went to Te Anau as our base to look at the Fiordland, we first checked out the official "Steepest Road in the World" which happened to be in Dunédin's outskirts.

They really were not kidding! If it isn't the steepest road, I am sure it is in the top 3. What a silly road! I wonder if all people living at the top of it are slim and sporty. If you gotta beat that hill walking every day you hardly have a choice than to stay slim (unless you use a car, of course, which would make you a cheater to the cause of sportiness).

Afterwards, we made our way to Te Anau in an uneventful 3 hours that had me regularly misplacing my glasses while obviously sitting at all times in the same spot. It was a strangely impressive display of idiocy, I have to admit.

Lake Te Anau is a beautiful and huge lake surrounded by mountains. Sadly, but unsurprisingly, Te Anau itself is just a big assembly of motels, hotels and B&B's. The increased prices also show that it certainly is one of the major tourist attractions on the South Island. The tours of the famed Milford Sound and the Doubtful Sound can also be booked from here.

One other thing that was really annoying is the fact that wherever you go, wireless internet is charged by the MB. In every hotel and café, you tend to get about 50 MB free and from then on, it is $5 NZD per 50 MB.

Sadly, using a booking site like trivago.com (to book your next hotels) uses up those 50 MB within about 5 minutes due to the sheer amount of pictures being downloaded to look at. It was ridiculous. As a consequence, we decided to just book our hotel in the next location (Queenstown) and apart from that make do without the internet for the time we're here (As you will have found out by now).
Apart from that, we're now just relaxing in our spacious studio (compared to the Backpackers) and getting ready for a slow day tomorrow with a bit of walking around lake Te Anau.

 This is apparently the steepest road in the whole wide world by the name of Baldwin Street

 Our futile attempt at demonstrating the steepness. Trust me, it is really damn steep. Any steeper and you would call it a cliff.
 Lovely Te Anau

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