Monday 16 March 2026 – Our next stop was in Te Anau, which is at the southern end of Lake Te Anau, some 230km south-west of Wānaka and about a three-hour drive. Once again, we spent a great deal longer on the journey than the bare bones of the drive, as we had a couple of interesting towns and an encounter with flesh-eating and occasionally cannibalistic worms to fit into the journey. As well as that, we discovered as we went, there was a lot of scenery to photograph admire en route.

Our first stop was none of these things, though. As we were driving along, Jane said words which sounded to me like “pull in on the left here, there is a bra fence.” I couldn’t make sense of the second bit, but, because I know my place, I followed the basic instruction and pulled in on the left.  And, behold!

There was a bra fence! Its history is rather chequered. It started because some wag put four bras on a fence, and, rather like the padlock bridges which one sees around the world, grew as people informally contributed to it and eventually was deemed an eyesore. It lost, erm, support from the local council who ordered it to be removed. Eventually it was set up at its current location, a private driveway belonging to Cardrona tour guide Kelly Spaans and her partner Sean Colbourne, and a donation facility added. It has currently raised over NZ$200,000 for breast cancer charities.

Having made a small donation to what seems like a good cause, we carried on, over the Crown Range Pass, about 40km south of Wānaka. There is a scenic lookout there, and with good reason. The view is simply staggering.

It even improves as you head down towards Queenstown,

with, at one point, a 270-degree panoramic view.

Queenstown, which is the lakeside town you can see in the first of the photos above, is very well-known as a place to visit. Less familiar to us was the name of the next place we visited, at the suggestion of Phil and Chris, our friends in Brisbane: Arrowtown.  It’s a town with, we learned, a considerable history around gold mining and Chinese immigrants, so we drove in to take a look.  The first challenge appeared to be to find a parking spot, but we followed a P sign which led to a full car park but one with an overflow area. We reached the furthest depths of the overflow area before we found a space, and I was worried that we would have a major hike into town until I looked to my left and saw a building whose picture I’d seen on Google Maps. It was actually this building

which is part of the Historic Arrowtown Chinese Settlement. So we had accidentally parked just a few yards away from a key part of the town we wanted to see!

So: Arrowtown, then. It’s a historic town, and the start of this history is marked.

In August 1862 Jack Tewa (known as Maori Jack) found gold in the Arrow River at this spot, and – who’d a thunk it? – very soon a town of 800 miners sprang up. The context of what follows is the Otago Gold Rush, which brought miners from all corners to this area of New Zealand in the 1860s. By 1865, the first flush was over and the provincial councils were worried about the local economy collapsing, so invited Chinese miners to come over and have a go. Altogether, some 8,000 miners came over and worked in the Otago area. In Arrowtown this was an inglorious episode where the Chinese were invited but not welcome; they were forced to live in huts beside Bush Creek, a tributary to the Arrow River, and endured considerable hostility from the local community. But the Chinese community in Arrowtown held together and developed while in others the Chinese, having made their money, moved away and any sites were abandoned. The site in Arrowtown is a partial restoration of the settlement, and “a mute reminder and tribute to the contribution made by Chinese goldminers and business people to the region’s gold mining, cultural and business history”.

There are several buildings to be seen on a short trail beside the creek. The building shown above, the one that caught my eye, is Al Lum’s Store, which stocked many of the European and imported goods that the Chinese miners needed. There are a few others, some dwellings and some used more for storage.

The main street in Arrowtown has many historic buildings still in use, and is a pleasant area to walk around. I wonder what the locals think about the large numbers of tourists who come to the town; one hopes they appreciate the income this represents.

Queenstown is basically next door to Arrowtown, but there’s still room for some scenery between the two.

It’s even more challenging to park in than Arrowtown. Caroline had recommended that we park at the Ice Arena and walk to the town through the gardens, so that’s what we did (but had to wait for someone to leave before we could park even there).

The gardens form an attractive area, with ponds and statuary

and an area with some commemorative works in it

From the gardens, you can go down to the waterfront and walk back to the town

above which one can see the Queenstown Gondola ascending.  This is one of the many Things To Do in Queenstown, but we only had time for a quick coffee (OK, OK, and a scone, yes) before we had to move on. So we left Queenstown largely unexplored, but we needed to get to Te Anau in time for our date with those worms. The rest of the drive was quite scenic

without any particular Lookouts to look out for; and the scenery softened somewhat from the jaggedy mountains to a more rounded landscape.

The area is very pastoral, with lots of farming. At one point it appeared that neighbouring farms were competing in the number of hay “marshmallows” they could dot around their fields.

We had to get to Te Anau by 4.30pm in order to join a trip to some glowworm caves. We’d seen glowworms in the wild before, but were intrigued by the idea of an exploration into caves.  The excursion is exclusively offered by RealNZ, which offers a number of excursions around the South Island (as we would see during the rest of our trip, actually). We checked in at their waterfront office in Te Anau and joined the happy throng

awaiting the boat which would take us to the caves.

It’s about half an hour’s cruise to Cavern House, where RealNZ have a visitor hut, which they use to brief people about the cave expedition. We kind of knew about the worms and the threads they dangle to ensnare insects attracted by the light they can emit, but we got a lot more detail via this briefing. Jane took photos of some of the pictures they showed us.

Among the nuggets we were told:

• The largest insect they can deal with is a moth. Having ensnared it, they attack it through its eyes, the only way the worm can get at the moth’s good bits
• The worm’s light comes from a mixture of three chemicals; it takes a worm around 45 minutes to kindle a light and about 10 minutes to extinguish it
• They are territorial; one worm might knock a neighbour off its bit of cave roof if it encroaches
• They are also cannibalistic; they might eat the other encroaching worm in order to maintain territory

We were also told that photography was forbidden; I knew this in advance, and so was emotionally prepared for this hardship.

The punters were then split into groups who each did something else whilst another group was looking at the worms. It’s a slick operation that RealNZ runs there, with 11 tours in a day and two to three dozen people in a tour. Since photography is forbidden, I can’t bring you my own photos, but there are some on the RealNZ site.

We had a short nature trek whilst the other group were in the caves, then we filed in (under a very low rock entrance) to the caves, which have been caused, of course, by rushing water. It’s still rushing, and in huge quantities – the name Te Anau comes from these caves, meaning the place of swirling waters – so at first things were very noisy as we followed a walkway past subterranean waterfalls and over rapids, with the glow of numbers of worms already visible. Eventually and in almost total darkness we clambered into a boat on a subterranean lake; this was manoeuvred by our guide pulling on a cable along a channel and into a chamber illuminated solely by the light of thousands, probably tens of thousands, of worms. It was quite the spectacle and the magic would have been ruined had people been trying to capture it on their phones, so the moratorium on photography makes complete sense.

We were glad that we’d made it to Te Anau in time for our cruise, which was a very good experience. The only suggestion I’d make is that they sell photos of the various parts of the trip – the waterfall and the rapids would make good images, and of course the worms themselves, difficult as it is to convey photographically. If they need a jobbing photographer to attempt these things, then they can contact me through this site…..

Only after this trip could we get to our accommodation in Te Anau, the comfortable and well-organised B&B called Dunluce. Te Anau was our base for one more activity, which I will tell you all about in the next entry.