After leaving Queenstown we headed to Te Anau, picking up yet more hitch-hikers on the way (stockpiling our good karma!) Te Anau is the start of the scenic drive to Milford Sound, and is considered one of the best drives in the world. After a brief stop in Te Anau to gather information, we set off. By this time it was mid-afternoon so we decided to stop at a DOC campsite along the way, and we pitched up next to a stream with beautiful views of the mountains that would become Milford Sound. Before cooking up a feast on the trangia,we took a wander through the forest and came upon the crystal clear waters of Lake Gunn. After a while we bumped into a very nice kiwi girl whose boyfriend came from West Byfleet! We chatted to her for some time before her boyfriend appeared....he'd been trout fishing but seemed to be lacking any trout. After our dinner of pasta, we walked back to Lake Gunn for sunset.
The next day we had a hearty breakfast of pancakes and coffee and continued our drive to the end of the road.....Milford Sound. The scenry was truly breathtaking and the mountains towered above us. It also wasn't raining, a rare occurance in an area that receives 200 days of rain per year. We decided to push the boat out (ha ha) and took a cruise out into Milford Sound itself. It's actually truly a fiord and is so deep at the beginning due to glacial erosion that the water appears black. It was pretty impressive sailing under the towering cliffs with waterfalls cascading down. We made it out to open water before returning back through the sound past fur seals lazing on the rocks.
From Milford Sound, we headed back along the only road out with a stop at Gertrude Valley for a walk in the mountains.
We stopped in Te Anau for the night before heading accross to Dunedin the next day.
Dunedin demonstrated much Scottish heritage and as we drove into the city the mist and drizzle were truly reminiscent of Scotland! The next day was spent exploring the Otago Peninsula to the east of Dunedin. We drove to the end of the peninsula where we saw Royal Albatrosses gliding on the somewhat strong breeze. We stopped for a walk at the Okia Flats hoping to spy some penguins or sea lions on the beach. We were out of luck with the wildlife but we did get to climb a volcanic vent, long since out of use!
We drove on a bit further to Allen's beach, and as we approached there were clearly sea lions, or possibly logs, on the beach. Our previous atempt to see seals further south has entailed us creeping up on what turned out to be large lumps of wood. However on this occasion the large brown lumps were indeed sea lions and we got within about 10 metres of them and managed to get some great photos of yawning male sea lions.
The evening was finished with a rare treat since we left south east Asia....a meal out. So what did we go for? Thai!
The next day we were back on the road heading north. We covered many miles as we had to get the car back to Motueka in a day or so. We stopped again at Hanmer Springs in a lovely little holiday park on the edge of Hanmer forest. We managed a short walk the next morning before heading off again. Our route took us across the northern Southern Alps through Lewis Pass. Needless to say, Sarah did the driving. Whilst there was limited traffic, a significant percentage of it consisted of huge double trailer lorries which were slow uphill but incredibly fast downhill. We stopped for a lovely picnic in the sun at a campsite towards the end of Lewis Pass.
We managed to get to Motueka by the end of the day and dropped off our trusty Toyota Camry.
The following day we were heading to Picton to get the ferry across to Wellingtongton on the north island. We utilised the cheap form of transport known as hitch-hiking. Our lifts included a couple of Canadian guys working on an apple farm and several older, retired Kiwi guys one of whom changed his route to accomodate us and insisted we stopped along the way for photo opportunities.
Our hitch-hiking was so successful that we managed to book ourslelves onto the 6pm crossing to the north island. We lazed in the sun for a couple of hours in Picton harbour and were soon on our way through the Marlborough Sounds. The ferry crossing took 3 hours and we were lucky that the ferry was almost empty.
