MOT Tour Day 43 - Derwent Bridge to Queenstown

An interesting day, dominated by the drive to Queenstown.

In the planning for this tour, it was this drive which was repeatedly highlighted as being a mixture of breathtaking, dangerous, demanding, exciting … almost as many adjectives of emotional response as the dictionary can throw up. The 99 Bends section in the 5kms before Queenstown has had a lot of attention from visitors. As a result and probably because we have spent the last seven days in hard dock and with only one drive, I was feeling a little uneasy about the drive.

The fog and mist and constant rain and signs warning of roads being slippery when wet and that one where a car is careening down a triangle, did nothing to ease my way into the ninety odd kilometres ahead of us.

I even had to turn off Bob Dylan during the drive, for heaven’s sake!

Retracing the ground we covered to Franklin River Nature Trail was probably the worst of the drive. The Lyell Highway, at that point, descends down to the Franklin in a steep and at times narrow section, with an inconsistent surface as a result of repairs, leading to water moving or sometimes pooling in different ways. Two adjacent surfaces react in different ways to your tyres and when you have another set behind you with a thousand kilograms sitting on them, the potential for problems is enhanced. Those problems can escalate quickly.

The answer, of course, is to take your time, so we did much of that longish descending section at 35kph. There were several descents and climbs after that but in the midst of them, we fluked a parking spot at Nelson Falls, in a tight parking area designed for cars.

Sue, adventurer though she is, wasn’t overly keen. It was raining and we had to change gear, donning the Drizabones for the first time on tour. However, off we went for a ten minute walk into the falls. The Nelson River was racing away beside us, boisterously on its way to eventually join the substantial Lake Burbury further to the west. Ferns of all types were thriving. You could almost hear them singing their satisfaction as rain got heavier. We didn’t stop at the viewing platforms along the way, wanting to make sure we got to the target before conditions turned us back.

Suddenly, there it was. What a beast! This was an engorged body of water, crashing over a 30 metre drop with a visual and auditory assault to your senses. The power and the abandonment of it as it seemed to threaten our safety just metres away from our viewing platform: a viewing platform set right in front of the waterfall. We were getting wetter but it was the falls which were doing the business.

Nelson Falls

We didn’t stay long. Once I noticed the rate at which the river was rising as it brushed past us. We had crossed a number of small bridges and I didn’t fancy wading across them on the way back. Returning to the car, you couldn’t escape the thrill we were both feeling at the experience.

On the road again, we were soon crossing and skirting along beside Lake Burbury. It was almost surreal - the huge lake on the right and more of those quickly vertical mountains on the left. The Lyell, at that point, threaded the needle and then climbed another mountain pass through Gormaston and delivered us to the famous 99 Bends.

Big, rugged mountains who had been interfered with during Queenstown’s extensive mining years, sat ugly at our side and then opened up, to reveal Queenstown below. To get there, we had to descend a steep, winding road. Now I’ve driven winding roads all over Australia, up and down mountain passes, some with the van on the back but this was an extended succession of tight bends, often back on themselves with the usual unstoppable fall on one side and full-stop rock faces on the other. I have no idea if there were 99 of them. I was too busy to count them but there were a lot.

I loved it!

Strange considering my reservations earlier in the day.

Click here for today's photos

The rest of the day was concerned with the more mundane things of restoring the larder and settling in for our four night stay. Another anticipated highlight in our planning for the tour tomorrow, when we ride the Wilderness Railway up into the mountains.