Te Anau
- Apr 6
- 7 min read
March 31 through April 7, 2026 we stayed in Te Anau. Te Anau is about a 2 hour drive from Queenstown. The drive began along the south end of Lake Wakatipu and continued to Kingston before turning toward the West, into the fjordland area and Lake Te Anau. We just drove through the small town of Te Anau on our way to the Milford Sound hike a few weeks ago.
Our AirBnB is a bit nicer than near Queenstown. It's a 2 bedroom house at the end of a very quiet street. RIGHT behind this unit is another unit of the exact same type and we share a common driveway, so every time someone comes/goes we see them and they see us. This means all our shades are drawn most of the time.
This week the weather started to turn and it looked like we only had a couple nice days of hiking weather. As the week wore on we ended up being able to do all the hikes on our list.
In summary: Te Anau is a small town of about 1,200 inhabitants and has plans to develop into a tourist destination. A week was about enough time to see and do what we wanted to see and do. We wouldn't really want to stay longer. Most of the "architecture" and homes look like 20 foot containers with siding. There were many places to eat with average food. Food and gas are pretty expensive - average meal out was NZ100+ (US$70+). There is one cinema in town (see below) and not much else to do that doesn't have to do with eating or outdoor sports.
March 31 - on the way back from the grocery store I was bitten several times by sandflies - I won't add photos. They say not to scratch the bites, but this is impossible so all my bites get infected and take 2 weeks to heal. I am unhappy. In addition, I seem to have strained my left bicep and shoulder from the recent challenging walks. I am almost out of larnica cream that I bought on the Dolomites trip....Drinking appears to be the only answer.
April 1 - Part of the Kepler Track. The Kepler track is a multi-day hike and one of the "great hikes" in New Zealand. It is a hut-to-hut track which we were not keen to do, but we were able to do most of it via day hikes. Today was the section from Rainbow Reach to Shallow Bay, about 7.3 miles and about 1000 in elevation gain.
The day started with a 20 minute drive to the car park and a bridge walk across the Waiau River. We saw a heron.
Most of the walk was along the river, except for a short side walk across a wetland area. The walk was pretty, but not too many highlights. We did see these purple mushrooms which weren't confirmed to be poisonous, per wikipedia, but wiki though they might be.
We saw some orchids in bloom. This type of orchid blooms at Easter time.
One rather funny thing was coming up to a swing bridge along the way. There were about 15 people waiting to come across, so we waited for them. We couldn't quite figure out why they were taking so long and came to find out the sign on their side of the bridge said no more than 1 person at a time on the bridge, where our side said 10 person max.
We decided not to walk all the way to the hut because it was all beach walking and I'd had my fill of sandflies.
On the way home from this walk we stopped at the bird sanctuary. This bird sanctuary is a place where birds are nursed back to health and then released. We were glad it was free because there were only two enclosures with anything in them. A local parakeet
and Takahe which are extremely rare.
We were told later in the week that this sanctuary has been sold and is being phased out which is why tours have been discontinued and why it is so small.
April 2 - the highest part of the Kepler Track from Brod Bay to the Luxmore Hut. This was a wonderful hike, about 11.3 miles with 3,185 feet of elevation gain. Although steep, the trail was very nice without too much mud, scrambling, or sandflies.
It started with a boat ride across Lake Te Anau. The path then took us through the "rain forest" and more blooming orchids.
(Aside - If you've ever watched "The Last Samarai", this was filmed in a similar location in New Zealand. We watched it last night and thought we were in Japan of three hundred years ago (lol).)
Right along our trip in New Zealand the moss has been amazing and I wish I could bring some back to England with me. Here's a short video of a lovely patch of it.
From there we moved up to a more rocky area with stairs
and finally above the tree line where we also saw higher altitude flora and fauna.
We made it to Luxmore Hut
in time to interact with some Kea finally. They were having fun trying to eat someone's hiking poles, (arrow is pointing to another kea that hasn't seen buni yet....)
wash basins, or, basically, anything..
Then we decided to check out the nearby caves, but decided not to go too far because we didn't bring enough lights with us and didn't want to slip and break something.
We didn't have quite enough time to go up to the summit and still catch our boat back, so started back down. The photo on the right is of Te Anau.
The weather was amazing and we had some great views. While waiting for the boat buni got some sandfly bites:(
Tonight I went to the local cinema and saw the 30 minute travel film produced by the fellow who owns the cinema. He built the cinema just to show this movie which was comprised of helicopter and drone shots of the local NZ fjordland in all seasons. Some of the shots were pretty amazing and it was nice to watch, if you like this sort of thing.
April 3 - Another amazing track called the Manapouri Circle Track. This was not part of the Kepler, but was a lovely hike that was about 6 miles and 1,525 feet of elevation gain. This was a 20 minute drive to Pearl Harbor (where we will catch tomorrow's Doubtful Sound boat).
Here we transferred to our water taxi for the 5 minute crossing of the Waiau River to the track start.
This was a less travelled hike with uncut detours around trees and mud.
It was very steep, but we really enjoyed it because it wasn't easy and we had to think while ascending. Several views were undercut, so we had to watch where we walked.
The weather held off and we had some lovely views across Lake Manapouri.
The route down was not as steep and there was some interesting fungus. The "blue wood" has a blue fungus that gradually moves up the decaying wood.
The return walk was about 2 miles too long as we came back along the river to the boat dock and back across the Waiau River.
On the way down we were followed for about 100 feet by several fantail birds. They are small and very cute, but very curious and attentive. Finally I googled to see if this behaviour meant they were defending their territory or getting ready to attack. It turns out that they see humans as mobile bug buffets, so follow us to try to get more to eat.
On Saturday we had a quick trip to the local market. We had hoped it would be a food market, but it turned out to be a craft/bakery market. It was similar to those in Liphook. We bought some wonderful cookies and marmalade.
Easter Sunday was our full day expedition to Doubtful Sound. It isn't really a Sound, but is a fjord that was first discovered by Captain Cook three hundred years ago. Of course the Maori knew about it for a long time before. Doubtful Sound was recommended by many people as much more beautiful than Milford Sound (also a fjord). I don't really agree with that statement, but was glad to see it to satisfy my curiosity. We, again, were very lucky with the weather and managed to avoid the rain.
We drove back to Pearl Harbor and boarded our boat to take us across Lake Manapouri.
Across the lake is a power station that was built, most of which is underground. I don't have photos of the power station, but had these nice photos of the initial crossing.
After the lake crossing (about 45 minutes), we boarded buses to cross the pass over to Doubtful Sound. The pass was pretty, but nothing like what we had seen over the past few weeks.
Now we boarded a boat for a tour of the Sound. There were some very pretty water falls and small islands.
There was a hotel literally located on the lake.
From there we continued out into the entrance to the Tasman Sea
and saw fur seals and albatross.
We came back into calmer waters and saw some beautiful lichen and a boat I would like to buy.
On the way back to the dock we took a side turn and interacted with a pod of bottlenose dolphins. On the way out two of them leapt out of the sound - I didn't get a picture, but it was pretty impressive.
We boarded the bus for the return trip and had the same boat ride back across Lake Manipouri back to Pearl Harbor.
April 6 - Our last full day in Te Anau and we did our last walk along the Keplar Track. This was about 7 miles and flat from the Visitor's Center to the locks. Not much to report here, but we did see an amphibious plane take off from the Lake and I fed some more sandflies.
Tomorrow we are off to Invercargill and are ready for our next adventure.
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