We began the day with cereal and coffee alongside Lake Te Anau. The lake is the 2nd biggest in New Zealand and was formed by a glacier.
We had a stroll around the lake and saw the sea planes that take off from the lake on their scenic flights around the fiords.
We headed into the town centre and booked our cruise on the Milford Sound, before going into a local shop to look for gloves. We went into a shop that had a huge big turquoise bird statue outside its door. The bird is a Takahe, which was thought to be extinct until 1948. A climber found a few 100 of them and now they are a protected species and are flourishing, probably as they are so ugly no one wants to have their head mounted in their pub!
We got a pair of gloves each and we were off down Route 94 to Milford Sound with our snow chains ready. It is a law to carry snow chains in your vehicle if you drive the Milford Sound road, as the weather can change rapidly. We had been briefed on how to use them, paid the 50 dollars extra for them, so we were secretly hoping to use them (well I was).
Te Anau Downs was our first stop. It is from this sheltered harbour area along Lake Te Anau that trampers (hikers) leave from to go up to the start of the Milford Track. New Zealanders refer to hikes as tramps? The Milford Track starts at the Northern most point of Lake Te Anau and the trampers go all the way past Mitre Peak into Milford.
The Mirror Lakes were our next stop. The small lakes alongside the road reflect the mountains on the surface of their aqua marine greeny bluey colour. Unfortunately there was a light breeze blowing, and this was disturbing the surface. A few large trout were also not playing the game as they kept popping up and gulping insects that happened to be on the surface of the water, which then sent ripples across the lakes. To add to the ripples, I dropped the lens cover to the camera into the lake. Jules decided that buying another one was not an option (although they only cost a few quid) and she decided to enter the protected waters of the Mirror Lakes. She jumped down off the wooden walkway and landed with her right foot in mud! She was not a happy camper and mumbled on and off for a while, as she tried to wipe off the mud on various protected plants. I did manage to clean her boot later when we stopped for lunch.
We decided not to stop at Knob's Flat - seen one seen them all we decided, and we were getting tired of seeing the amazing scenery. The "Flats" were incredible areas of flat plateaus with huge snow capped mountains in the distance, making every 5 minutes look like another post card scene.
We did however stop at the Lake Gunn Nature Walk spot. The 45 minute walk took us through a red beech forest walk to the shores of Lake Gunn. The most amazing part of the forest was the moss. Now when you read a book and the hero is lost, but cleverly looks at which side of the trees the moss is growing, we all acknowledge his intelligence. Well Mr.Hero, good luck in New Zealand mate - the moss grows everywhere! It covers everything that stands still, on all sides. We t ought it looked like something from an alien movie some kind of mushy green parasite that slowly covered everything. Anyway we enjoyed the walk, especially listening to the sounds of the forest as we walked.
We drove another 10 minutes and stopped to have lunch next to the shore of Lake Gunn, left over bolognaise on toast.
We drove another hour before deciding to stop for the night at a camp just before The Divide and still alongside Lake Gunn.
The road to Milford is within a national park, so the Department of Conservation have set up camp sites along the road for people to use which then means people don't stop all over show and mess up the natural eco-system. We stayed at one of these DOC campsites.
We pulled in at 4pm and picked a great spot, as we were early. This camp was the last camp before crossing the Homer tunnel into Milford.
The view of Lake Gunn, with the sun setting over the massive snow peaks in the distance was truly breath taking and Jules and I were very grateful to be standing on the shore, feeling very blessed indeed!
We also stopped early as we wanted to make mutton stew and so wanted some extra time to allow the stew to cook slowly.
I was up for the challenge of trying to cook my usual lamb stew with mutton, on a gas plate, minus most of the spices I would use at home. Well, we had some of the spices and when I added the red wine, all seemed fine.
While we were waiting for our stew to cook, we watched camper van after camper van pull in and find spots, until all the spots were full. We were very glad to have taken our spot so early.
We had to be on the road by 8am the next day, so we had a quick shower after the delicious stew and hit the sack.
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