St. Arnaud

St. Arnaud was very quiet and peaceful. There's a few walks close by the Alpine Lodge where we were looked after rather well during our stay there. It's about a five minute walk from the Lodge to Lake Rotoiti following the stream (see left) that feeds into the lake. The weather was quite changeable and views across the lake could look very moody or menacing with grey clouds, or peaceful and picturesque. On arrival it was more of the former. Quite monochromatic and moody, but still captivating. There's three wharves that lead into the lake (Lake Rotoiti) and I think everyone with a camera that visits the lake stands on at least one of the wharves (the eastern most being the favourite) to take a picture.

There's quite a few birds in the area that sound quite lovely. There's bellbirds and tuis that both enjoy the sweet sticky honeydew excretions from the various aphids and other insects that suck the sap from the trees in the bush. You can see some of the honeydew, and the black sooty mould on the tree trunks on the image to the left. With time to just sit and relax you're bound to see the bellbirds quite close to. Sadly, we were a bit short of time so most things were in a rush in an attempt to see as much as possible in the available time. Even so we saw bellbirds, tuis and robins.

If you've enjoyed the pictures in this post you may like to look here where I've saved some more images of our trip to the South Island.