Having given NG at least a weeks to bask in his self pride I thought it time I told about everything else we have been up to in the last few days. I think he left you in Queenstown, one of the most awesome towns we have been to in New Zealand. It has everything from wicked skiing to amazing water sports. The area is gorgeous, set beside a massive lake surrounded by huge mountains and while we were there at least, gorgeous sunshine. We spent some lovely hours sitting by the lake, eating fish and chips and sitting by a log fire drinking coffee or eating pizza and meeting crazy people.
In the days; we went on one of the America's cup sailing boats, which was brilliant with both of us taking our turn at the helm. We also explored the area, driving up and around many hairpin bends and visiting quaint little villages.
From Queenstown we travelled further south to Te Anau, the closest settlement to the Fiordland area. We took a day tour down to Milford Sound and went kayaking around the sound which was awesome. We spent about 5 hours on the water, stopping briefly for lunch, and paddled along side a few seal. The area was spectacular and almost too big to take in. it is like a massive lake, with an opening to the sea, surrounded by mountains. There is strange illusion that happens when the mountains are so high and they make the distance between them look very small. It was in fact 4km in width and having kayaked out towards the sea it then took a good 40 mins to kayak across the sound. Being in a double kayak with anyone is quite a challenge in itself but only once did I have to shout at NG as he lent across to grab one of the other boats, nearly capsizing us. What a cluts! I took the steering duties at the back, whilst NG was the power house at the front. The boat was not the most responsive and I think NG may have a few words to add about my steering!Oh and we were eaten alive by sand flies.
There is really nothing else to do in Te Anau so we didn't hang around too long, although we did just take in a quick movie at the local cinema on our way out. This local guy, who owns a helicopter, decided a few years ago that the only way to see the fiordland area was from the air. He teamed up with a couple of the camera crew from the 'Lord of the Rings' set, which was filming here at the time, and made a 30 minute film purely showing the entire area from the air. He spent 2 years editing and setting it it to music and then having no one agree to screen it, built his own cinema in the town. It was gorgeous. It is screened every hour, all day and there are big comfy chairs and a bar. So it gave us an easy way to wake up with a coffee in the morning before our next drive, across to the East coast again to Dunedin.
