Te Anau

Trip Start Sep 11, 2008
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Trip End Jun 05, 2009

Flag of New Zealand  , South Island,
Friday, January 9, 2009

We hired a car from Queenstown airport and drove west to Te Anau which is a small town acting as the base for Milford Sound 100km away. Te Anau is 200km away from Queenstown so we booked into the Top 10 holiday park and got a little cabin amongst all the campervans. We booked a trip to Milford the next day and visited Manapouri down the road, paddled in the freezing crystal clear waters of the lake, chickening out of swimming. Then we went back to Te Anau and went to see the glowworm caves, a trip across Lake Te Anau with more stunning scenery then into the caves on a tiny boat in the dark. The glowworms look like tiny green stars, thousands of them on the roof. Its not supposed to be as good as the ones on the North Island but we did it while we had the chance.
The next day we drove to Milford Sound, stopping at all the points of interest along the way which are so well signposted with carparks and walkways, the same all over where we have been. Mirror lakes, rainforests, waterfalls and views across valleys. The layout for tourists is perfect and we would have missed it all on tour buses or Greyhound buses. Its hard to drive without crashing though as round every corner is another incredible view, it's just amazing, when the view is blocked by trees and ferns you want to look at them too as they are prehistoric looking ferns and trees. At one car park and outside the 1200m tunnel with its traffic lights that stay red for 15 minutes, several endangered mountain parrots called Keas jump on the car and chew the aerials and rubber seals if you don't feed them. You mustn't feed them as they don't bother teaching their young to forage for food if you do.
We were upgraded to a bigger boat at Milford as we were the only 2 booked on the cheap small boat and it was quiet anyway as we missed the lunchtime rush when all tour buses arrive and we got free sarnies which made my day. There was a huge waterfall over a cliff into the Sound which the boat goes right up to. Supposedly if a woman stands in the water she will wake up looking 10 years younger the next day. Lucy did it and got completely soaked but I'm not sure the legend held much truth. (Yes it did I'm looking not a day over 20 thank you! ....Lucy) Milford Sound was good, it was a bit cloudy but the view was still pretty good, although we had seen so much incredible scenery already we felt we could probably have not bothered with the trip and just driven around on land instead. We did see a rare Fiordland crested penguin and a few Fur Seals which was cool. Everyone does the trip though so we had to! It was worth it for the drive there.
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