Milford Sound Te Anau

Back on the Southern Scenic Route but now heading north to the Fiordland National Park... if you find yourselves in NZ South Island, you should drive this route. It's amazing; this is what life is all about, getting back to nature with 21st century amenities thrown in.

So where are we now? Well ...

... the Road to Milford has …

From Alices Diary

Tuesday 1.11.11 – Scenic Cruising – Fiordland National Park

Weather: Cloudy Skies with Rain, North Easterly Winds 14 Deg C

"Today we are sailing along the south coast of New Zealand. We will not be setting foot again on New Zealand soil. So far it has been a great journey. We are really …

Marvelous is indeed the correct way to describe this part of the country! We left Te Anu mid morning to drive the Milford road - renowned for being one of the most beautiful roads in New Zealand, it did not disappoint! You drive through the mountains and across glacial terrain, stopping every 2 minutes for photographs. We took a short walk to a …

I cannot apologise enough for my tardiness in updating this blog, I am a horrible, horrible person and diary-ist. I'm most certainly no Michael Palin.

Anyway, I left Invercargill, still enveloped in pouring rain, even coming across some snow-storms on the hills as I make my way along the final stage of the Southern Scenic Route to Te Anau …

Woke up at 5:45am and headed to the bus for 6:40am. Drive past the Remarkables: a mountain range at the lake in Queenstown, one of the few ranges that runs true north/south. We then drive though the village of Frankton. Lake waikatipu is the longest lake at 80km long and it's deepest point is 1200feet or 400 metres. It's the third deepest lake it …

It took 4hrs to drive from Dunedin to Te Anau with only a short stop for noodles. We stayed at Henry Creek DOC camp for the night, 1.5hrs drive from Milford Sound. We just chilled out on the pebble beach that night overlooking Lake Te Anau and the mountain backdrops. We had some dinner, watched the sunset and went to bed.

In the morning we …

Got up early today and had our brekkie of course.

Another exciting journey lies ahead of us. Today we were heading to Milford Sound, one of the most visited tourist destination in NZ. Its about 4 hours away from Queenstown and 2.15 hrs from Te Anau.


Well the road to Milford passes through sheep lands and unspoiled mountain …

We had a glorious flying day yesterday. Weather was still a bit unsettled in Masterton with showers around but the visibility was good enough and we were able to depart. The first leg was a 'competition' leg which involved identifying and answering questions about specific points along the planned track.

The Safari organizers had the idea …

The Milford Sound is one of the most famous scenic areas in the world. I spent 5 hours on a bus to get there and 4 hours to get back just to go on a cruise up and down this fjord The way to the fjord took a lot longer because we made scenic photo stops along the way to see viewpoints of lakes and mountains. The water is so clear here that most of …

Today was a long day to view and take a cruise in Milford Sound. Milford Sound is a long narrow inlet on New Zealand’s west coast with large steep cliffs on either side. While Queenstown and Milford Sound are relatively close together, due to the rugged terrain, there is no direct road access so I had to take a long four hour bus ride through …

... and got out at every stop doing the tourist thing. Everything was a bit more difficult because of the rain, but I welcomed the rain. Milford Sound has hundreds of waterfalls when it's raining and all but a few disappear when it dries up. We saw some ...

... to the Visitor's Centre at 8.45am, ready for a 9.30am departure. That gave us time to speak to an advisor regarding Milford Sound cruises. I persuaded Charlotte to do the overnight cruise with me, although it was easy as it was on special offer at just ...

... second largest lake in NZ, which was also very beautiful). Then we were on the road to Milford Sound. This was a very beautiful road, with Lake Te Anau on one side and mountain ranges on the other and driving towards snow capped mountains, the ...

Rain ...

... well worth it. I just hope that New Zealand realize that this is a very special place and don't turn it into a free for all. Milford Sound was beautiful but it was marred by the massive number of people on it, I hope that progress stays away from the so ...

... found a place to book our next 2 trips down the sounds at reasonable ish prices. Parked up along the lake here towards Milford Sound. Remarked next morning as we woke up to another stunning vista that its very difficult to get nice locations for a ...

... Lumpur, Malaysia who was a journalist. He was combining work with a holiday - business in Auckland and a visit to Milford. Our roommate at the Te Anau (pronounced "Te-Anow") hostel was a young guy from Kitchner-Waterloo who had brought his bike with ...

... , unfortunately the wind wasn't strong for them to fly, but we did see some seals so that made up for it. We then headed across country to Te Anua. We made it to Te Anua late on in the day ready for our jaunt over to Milford sound the following ...

... and a desk. Te Anau looked lovely; we were right on the lake. We didn't really have that much time as we were going to Milford Sound that afternoon, so we booked in and dumped our stuff and headed back into town to pay for our trips. While I was there ...

We headed south to Te Anau after Queenstown because it's the jumping-off point for excursions to Milford Sound. Te Anau itself doesn't have much to see, but there were a couple things to do int he surrounding area. We decided to get up early the first ...