Te Anau and Milford Sound

(We've been home for over a month now and seem to have developed writer's block, but we'll attempt to cover the last portion of our travels)

March 8 - We left Queenstown for Te Anau hoping to stop for breakfast on the other side of Lake Wakatipu in the Kelvin Heights area, but we couldn't find any cafes or restaurants there. The road beside the lake was another typical winding, twisting one, and at the end of the lake, we found a little cafe in Kingston. The rest of the road to Te Anau was very good, lots of straight stretches through farms and ranches - many sheep stations and quite a few deer farms. Te Anau is a little village on the shores of Lake Te Anau and is the gateway to Fiordland National Park, Doubtful Sound and Milford Sound. We spent the afternoon strolling through the the shops and scouting out the best dinner spot (Luxmore Hotel). We also found a supermarket to purchase provisions for our breakfast and lunch the following day. We were booked on the 9 am Milford Sound cruise the next morning, so we had to get an early start. The drive to the sound takes about an hour and three quarters to two hours, depending on how fast you like to drive. The first part is pretty straightforward and then WOW - lots of elevation changes, narrow one way bridges,a one way tunnel, etc. We wondered how they get all the tour busses in and out day after day. The drivers have to be excellent. There are many different types of cruises available, even overnight ones, but we opted for a 90 minute Red Boat Cruise that covered the highlights. We were fortunate with the weather, it was cool, only 9-10 degrees C. but bright and sunny. There had been quite a lot of rain the previous few days, so there were numerous waterfalls coming down the steep sides of the surrounding cliffs. We had a very pleasant ride around the sound and even encountered a pod of dolphins which followed us for about five or ten minutes. They are really beautiful creatures.

On the way back to Te Anau, we stopped for a short walk at the chasm and then for our picnic lunch at a rest stop along the way. It was quite lovely, nice quiet little spot with a few picnic tables - but then the sandflies found us - and we finished our lunch in the car. They are vicious little biting blackflies so beware! We stopped in Te Anau for gas and ice cream - they have excellent ice cream in New Zealand. Just a few kilometres out of Te Anau, Bob passed a slow moving grader and the next thing we knew, there was a police car chasing us with lights flashing. So we pulled over and and the policeman gave Bob a $150 ticket for passing when unsafe to do so. He said that there wasn't enough room to see clearly and we think he was full of s___. We didn't pay the ticket yet. We drove on to Cromwell, a small town about 45 minutes north-east of Queenstown, where we spent the night. There was an 18-hole golf course right next to our motel and we were going to play the next morning, but the wind was howling and it was cold again, so we decided to head for Christchurch.

We have constantly been amazed at the different types of landscape in New Zealand, especially on the south island. This central part was a valley with numerous vineyards. Then there were some very stark rocky sections and another pass. We headed up highway 8 through Twizel and past Lake Pukaki to Lake Tekapo. Both of these lakes are a beautiful turquoise colour (like Lake Louise). You are supposed to be able to see Mount Cook from Lake Tekapo but it was cloudy in that direction, so we missed seeing the famous mountain. We went through a little place called Geraldine which seemed pretty nice, but we were getting tired of one night stands and were looking forward to staying in one spot for a few days - so we pushed on to Christchurch, where we spent the next four days.