Lins and Rich’s Travel Blog

So, I’ve been in Invercargill, the world’s most southerly city, all afternoon and I haven’t managed to check in to a hostel as the one we went to at 12.30 had a sign saying ‘be back at 2′, then we went back at 1.40, hopeful but not expectant and we were right not be, then again at 2.30 to find a sign saying ‘be back at 5′.  We went to another hostel to find that the owners would be back at 4, and we saw the sign saying what beds they had available:  all of them.  Not wanting to stay in an otherwise empty hostel, we parked back up outside the first hostel and have now come to the internet to kill the time until we can check in.  Why didn’t we go to see the sights?  Well, ‘cos there aren’t any!  Moan over.  On to amazing things.

On Wednesday morning, in the continued absence of snow, we opted for the alternative sporting activity in Queenstown and took a couple of mountain bikes for a ride around the lake.  We spent a couple of hours following the track around one side of the lake with views over to the other side of The Remarkables mountain range - and they have truly been aptly named.  They are absolutely stunning (I’m also now running out of adjectives to describe the wonderful sights here).

We then followed the line of the Southern Alps further along by road to the township of Te Anau.  This is situated on the second largest lake in New Zealand (after Lake Taupo) and is a handy base for travelling to Milford Sounds, which we did the following day.

The 120km drive from Te Anau to Milford Sounds (that should really be called Milford Fiord as a sound is apparently created by land erosion and a fiord is carved by a glacier) is without a shadow of a doubt the most amazing drive I have done in living memory.  Every  few metres there is a new photo worth taking and we had to limit ourself quite considerably in the number of stops we made as we had to get to Milford within a couple of hours to catch a cruise around the fiord.   We did, however, stop to retrieve our breath a few times, including at Mirror Lakes, which clearly reflect the mountains behind them, and to take a few mountain shots.

The road isn’t the safest in the world, as the receptionist pointed out when I called to try to book a later cruise and she recommended we come earlier as there would be less people on the road to help us later in the event of something going wrong.  We did see one accident on our way, though I think it can only really have been caused by someone driving badly.  We did, however, have to negotiate some fairly treacherous corners and the Homer Tunnel; a 1200m long, dark hole that was  drilled through the mountain to create jobs during the Depression in the 1930s and which wasn’t completed until 1953 to create access to the fiord.

We arrived at the Fiord and managed to get half price cruise tickets as Rich remembered that our car had a sticker in that mentioned a 2 for 1 deal with the rental company and all we had to do was show our car keyring - $65 well saved!

The cruise itself was not as impressive as the drive, though we didn’t have the blazing sunshine to light up the cliffs either side, nor sufficient rain to create the cascading waterfalls that appear in downpours; it was just pretty grey and misty so the views were somewhat obscured.  Nonetheless, when you saw other boats up against the cliffs to give a sense of perspective, it became clear that we were a very tiny vessel in amongst very large natural objects of beauty.  All in all, a spectacular day.

It’s nearly five so we’re off to try for fourth time lucky!