Milford Sound

Milford Sound is considered one of the top tourists destinations in New Zealand. It is also one of the rainiest places in the world with an average of 180 days of rain per year and an average of over 1,200 meters per year. Not the day we went, however. As we made our way through Te Anau and onto the Milford Road, the heavy fog that smothered the road during the early morning lifted to reveal a beautiful, cloudless, sunny day. 

They suggest a drive time of 2 hours to be able to make all the nice stops and walks that are on the road--which John and I saved for the trip back as we had one of the earlier cruise times. It it is also a legal requirement during the winter once the snow comes to carry chains for your tires--luckily we didn't have to worry about that because of the lack of snow. 

On the way to Milford Sound you pass through an old tunnel, called the Homer Tunnel, dug in the 1930s. It goes directly through solid rock underneath a mountain and is rather narrow. It was really cool though, as all around you as you drove through was just solid rock.

Milford Sound itself was beautiful. It is the largest of the fiordland sounds, containing the famous and picturesque Mitre Peak, the tallest sea cliff in the world, haven risen directly from the sea floor to a height of 1,692 meters.

The sound was peppered with beautiful mountains and waterfalls. There are dolphins that live in the sound, but unfortunately we didn't see any. We did see some more fur seals lounging on the rocks. The sound also has an underwater observatory where you can view the plant and animal life beneath the surface--but it costs extra so we didn't get off there. 

As we finished the cruise and made our way back onto the Milford Road, the great weather kept up and we were able to make all the little stops on the way back to Te Anau. The first was a stop called The Chasm. It was an area where rushing water had carved away rock into interesting formations. 

Out in the parking lot there were signs posted warning tourists to not feed the Kea, the curious Alpine parrot that is known to pick apart the rubber from cars and eat tramping boots left out. As we were leaving the car park there was a group of girls who showed up behind us, They had been on our tour and took hokey pictures of themselves at the front of boat doing the Titanic pose. As the four of them got out of the car and walked across the parking lot to the start of the trail that led to The Chasm they threw a piece of bread on the ground near their car. Sure enough, a Kea flew down and landed right on one of their passenger side mirrors. We were already headed to our next stop so we didn't wait around to see how much damage it might do.

The next stop was just a beautiful little roadside view called "Pop's View" that was named after a local man nicknamed "pops" who died in an avalanche in the area back in the 80s. It was a gorgeous view, though, especially with the way the sun was shining on the valley. 

Another stop we made was a bit further down on a turnoff leading to a popular tramping track called the Hollyford. We made a short 10 minute walk to a nice rushing river/waterfall that was at the start of the track. You could walk all the way to the lake but it was 3 hours return, so we decided against it.

The last stop we made was toward the end of the road at a spot called Mirror Lakes. It's really two small ponds that reflect the mountains and hills that run alongside the Milford Road. It was a short 5 minute walk, though, and worth the stop. 

They say the road to Milford Sound is just as beautiful as the fiord itself, and indeed, the whole day was filled with beautiful sights! 

That night we stayed in a lovely backpackers about 9 km south of Te Anau called Barnyard Backpackers. The rooms were actually self-contained cabins, each with a TV and their own bathrooms. Even though we had a dorm room cabin, for the first two nights we were there we had the whole thing to ourselves, which was quite nice. All the cabins were a short walk down a hill from the main building that housed the kitchen and common room. The places was really nice, with a decent-sized, clean kitchen, two wood-burning fire places, and their was a loft upstairs with couches and a pool table. The hostel had two Woofers while we were there, serving as lodge staff, and one of the guys Jessie played a lot of pool with John and I to pass the time.

The weather for our two days in Te Anau wasn't great and so we didn't embark on any of the walks we had wanted because a heavy fog fell over the area and didn't lift for those two days. You could barely see 20 feet in front of you it was so thick. So we hung around the place, playing pool (and I started to get pretty good I must say),  watching TV, occasionally venturing out, and playing with the hostel's adorable yellow lab dog, Zack. He was such a sweet dog, especially in comparison to the Alaskan Malamute. 

One of the days we ventured out to a bird wildlife park about 10 minutes away. It was really just a bunch of different birds in cages of varying size--some cages covered a whole area, and some were really small. All of the birds were either in some sort of rehabilitation or breeding program. Not the most exciting thing, but it was good to get out and about a bit--even in the gross weather. Since we couldn't explore the area through walking, as the weather simply wouldn't lend itself to a decent walk, we headed into town the second day to catch a movie about Fiordland made by a local helicopter pilot. He spent five years capturing footage as we went out in his helicopter and then got some friends to help him edit it together and add music. The subtitle of the film was called "Shadowland." It had some really fantastic scenes of Fiordland as we gathered footage in all kinds of weather, times of day, and seasons. The movie was only half an hour, and only had music, no talking, but it was still a half-hour well spent.

View of the setting sun from our cabin in Te Anau.

Even tough we didn't get to do everything we wanted in Te Anau, that was our only bout of bad luck with the weather. Still, we were able to greatly improve our pool skills! The next day, as the weather cleared and the sun shined again, it was off to Invercargill!

Queenstown

Our next stop was the famous adrenaline capital of New Zealand--Queenstown. We took the scenic route from Wanaka and went down a very steep hill into the valley where Queenstown and it's neighboring towns are located. We weren't there to spend lots of money, so for us it was a bit of a dud, as everything in Queenstown costs money, but we still managed to have a good time and enjoy the feel of the place. 

The first thing we did was, once again, on the suggestion of Mark from Sequoia Lodge in Picton. We took the gondola or "Skyline" to the top of Bob's Peak. It was a pretty steep ride, but from the top you could see out all over Queenstown. It wasn't the best weather that day, and the coldest day we'd had yet, but it was still a very beautiful view.

We combined our gondola ride with two luge rides that they have at the top. You sit in little plastic luge buggies and ride down a track. There are two different ones: a beginner one, that everyone has to do first, and then you can do the more advanced one. John and I bought two rides each, so we were able to do both tracks once. It was quite fun, though my hands were numb by then end as I didn't wear gloves and it was very cold and windy on the top of that mountain. 

Luckily, our luge rides got us a great deal in their cafe at the top as well--a sweet and hot drink for $6! Which, for NZ prices, is pretty darn good. 

Next, we headed over to our hostel, The Last Resort, to check in. I had read good reviews about the hostel as it is one of the smaller ones in Queenstown, and thus much more quiet. It was once an old brothel, and then became a dilapidated building until the current owner bought it and fixed it up into a backpackers. It was still a work in progress, but the beds were very comfortable and it had a nice kitchen and nice flat screen TV with a pretty good DVD collection. 

The hostel also had a dog, a female Alaskan Malamute named Coco. Coco seemed like a pretty nice dog, but I found out she could be a bit testy. Sometimes when you went to pet her she seemed fine with it, but when I went to remove my hand she snapped at it. So I was pretty timid to pet her after that unless it was on her back while she was walking away. 

But the hostel was right in the center of town and walking distance to everything, which was nice, but it was also tucked away in a corner so it was also nice and quiet--which was essential considering we were there over the weekend and Queenstown is known for it's bars and pub crawls. No drunken loud kids coming back at 5 a.m.! (as the bars close at 4). 

We relaxed in our hostel for the afternoon, and then took a walk through the Queenstown gardens. It was nice, but very chilly and the first day that it really felt like winter. High clouds gave the sky that all-over grey, overcast look and the temperature had definitely dropped. After our little stroll and walking through the town, we headed back to the hostel.

For dinner that night we ate at a famous burger joint in Queenstown called Fergburger. It's quite popular as they serve huge, delicious burgers for a very reasonable price (mine was $10) and are open until 5 a.m. to feed the hungry, drunk people after all the bars have closed. They make bank as I never walked past the place without having several patrons inside. Indeed, it was a very good burger. It's funny how New Zealand tends to do gourmet pizzas and burgers better than the United States, but indeed I am convinced they do. 

That night we met up with our old flat mates from Hastings, the British couple Keelie and Ross, as they had just found a house and were staying in Queenstown for the duration of the ski season (which had yet to start). They both found it difficult to get jobs in the city, as there was NO snow yet at all, so there were tons of young people descending on the town looking for work that had yet to start--thus the supply exceeding the demand. Apparently, a good number of people had already come and gone, as they couldn't afford to stay in the town without work. Glad John and I were able to secure ours (that came with accommodation) early on!

Anywho, we just hung out at their new house for a while--talking to some of their friends and housemates, who were all very nice. At about 12:30 we all left to head into town to go out. But first they were making a pit stop at a house party. By that point I was simply too tired, as I am an old lady and it was past my bed time. So we caught a lift back into town (as their house is about a 7-10 minute drive outside the downtown) and bid our goodbyes and went back to the hostel to hit the sack!

The next day I had to wake up at 8:00 a.m. to go feed the meter for our car. There was public parking right across the street for $2.50 per day, which is really cheap, and free parking from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. But right at 8 I had to run outside and across the street to pay for our parking for the day. As it's winter here, it was still a bit dark at 8 a.m. and rather cold, so I made sure it was John's turn the next morning :)

The weather that day wasn't great--grey skies with patches of light showers. I wanted to do a walk that went up Queenstown hill, but John wanted to stay in and enjoy the nice flat screen. Luckily, the place had free internet so we were able to occupy ourselves.

Over both days we had several bar advertisers come through the backpackers offering coupons and drink specials at their bar that night. Free shots at this place, drink specials at this one. Obviously we didn't partake in them, but there did seem to be a fair number of nicer bars and restaurants in the area. John and I might plan to go back there for an anniversary dinner in August. Instead of going out, though, we spent the evening watching the Manchurian Candidate--which I had never seen before.

The last day was much of the same. We took another stroll through the downtown in the early afternoon, as the city had picked up a bit more tourists over the weekend. We spent the morning watching old, season 1 episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on TV--classic!

That night, though, we actually went out as I had gotten a great deal on a website specifically for Queenstown activities called "Book Me" for  a Wine Tasting place right in town. It was called Wine Tastes and they had tastings of both local (Central Otago) and New Zealand wines of all different varieties. We only paid $14 for $30 worth of tasting each. It was really nice--they had a system where you inserted a card with a pre-loaded amount and selected either a taste, half glass, or full glass of the wine you wanted to try--the prices varied by the price of the bottle. We had some Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir (which had the most extensive range of choices as it's the prime grape grown in Central Otago), other red varieties, and dessert wine. We were able to get a lot of tasting in on $30 and got to try some wines that I had wanted to try. 

It was a good way to cap-off Queenstown, which we left early and snowless on Monday morning to make the 4 hour drive to Fiordland and Milford Sound!

Wanaka

The drive to Wanaka involved some rather windy roads through an area called the Haast Pass. It was a 4 hour drive with very few petrol stations and lots of hills and curves. We did stop at a small little walk along the road called the Blue Pools. It was pretty and a good way to stretch our legs.

I was glad when we finally reached Wanaka, as it was sunny and beautiful as we drove along the lakes leading to the town. 

We decided to make a stop at the much publicized Puzzle World just out of town. We had encountered another place called Puzzle World in Taupo, but it looked really cheesy and dumb. This one was actually pretty decent. They have a leaning clock tower that goes backwards, with many fun photo opportunities. 

The first thing we did when we got there was the Great Maze. It's a life-size maze that goes around the main building. There were 4 different colored towers in four different corners. The task was to make it to each color tower and then find the exit. There was a bridge and staircases, and it wasn't as easy as it sounds. We managed to complete the thing in about 30-45 minutes, although some people can take longer than an hour. It was quite fun, I must say.

This was the cool entrance to the bathrooms with the entrance in Roman style and a cool painting on the wall

Then we ventured inside where they had a room full of puzzles and mind games and that kind of stuff. We tried a few of those before heading into the main part of the park--their illusion wing. There was lots of cool stuff to explore there: holograms, a wall of moving faces ( a room full of floor to ceiling concave famous faces that seemed to follow you when you walked back and fourth), a  slanted room that had really cool effects that made it look like a ball or water went uphill on its own, and a cool room called the Ames Illusion. They used it in Lord of the Rings--particularly to enunciate the height difference between Hobbits and Giants/people. It's really cool how it works and we got it on film to show the effect. 

It was a fun way to spend the afternoon before checking into our hostel that was in a great location, about 5 minutes walk from downtown, with great views over the lake and mountains. It was a nice hostel, with a great lounge room with big windows (and plenty of games), a nice, big, and clean kitchen, and warm dorm rooms (and ours had its own bathroom!) It also had a great view over Lake Wanaka.

Our first day we mostly lounged around but took an afternoon walk to a near by hill called Mt. Iron (not really a mountain, though). It was a nice short walk up a hill and the views from the top were great--you could look out all over Wanaka. There was an American high school group on the track with us--they left before us but we beat most of them to the top. Once up there, one of the girls was complaining about how having to do such a walk (30 to 45 min) was "torture" and that she had "never sweated that much in [her] life" . . . sigh. We decided to head back down before the entirety of the group got up there. 

We were lucky to get such great weather while we were in Wanaka--you wouldn't know it was winter as there was NO snow (except for on the mountain tops) and the sun made the weather quite mild. When we passed the Treble Cone ski field the next day, the entire mountain was bare--they hadn't even laid down a base yet with their own snow because it wasn't cold enough. 

The second day we made our way a bit out of town to go on the Rob Roy Glacier walk. On our way there, as we drove along the unpaved road, we encountered our first cattle crossing. We came upon a small herd of cattle that was blocking our path along the road. We didn't honk, as we didn't want to spook them and cause a stampede, but was just slowly rolled down the road until eventually they moved out of the way. I snapped a picture of the experience!

The Rob Roy track was posted as a 3-4 hour round trip, but it only took us the minimum three. It was quite a nice walk, though we were in the shade for most of the time as we were in a bit of a valley, and we were walking along a river so it could get quite chilly. But, it was still a relatively easy walk and we really enjoyed the views of the glacier at the end. It was smaller than the ones on the West Coast, but it was remote and we were the only ones there. It, too, used to be much larger than it is today.

We enjoyed our time in Wanaka, and the backpackers as well. In the kitchen they had a free food and free clothing basket for stuff that got left behind. We managed to nab some free food and I got some pretty nice free clothes: a zip-up fleece, boots, and women's small Columbia ski pants! It was a really good stop for us, though on the last night a random person came into the room around 12:30 a.m. when everyone was asleep and was not bothered to be quiet while settling in. The next morning he took a hot shower in the hallway without shutting the door properly and set off the fire alarm. The owners, as well as the guests, were none too pleased. 

When we left the next morning, a winter chill was very noticeable as there was frost on our car windshield--something that had yet to occur our whole time on the South Island. It turned out to be an overall chilly day as we made our way to Queenstown!

The Glaciers

We arrived in Franz Josef a good 2 hours before we were to check in. So we grabbed some quick lunch and I took advantage of the warm sun and took a nice, very needed nap in the car for about two hours while John did some crossword puzzles.

After that, we were able to check into our room and put our stuff down before heading to the Franz Josef glacier. It was a short drive out of the very small town and then about a 45 minute walk one way to get to the terminal face or start of the glacier (well, about 100 meters away). The walk was really easy and provided some nice scenery--though there had been some cloud development in the few hours that we had been in town. As you got closer and closer to the glacier, you could feel the air get colder and colder. There are two glaciers in the area: The Franz Josef and the Fox glaciers. The Franz Josef is the bigger of the two, but at the time, with the mild winter, a lot of the glacier had melted a bit and was pretty dirty as there was no new snow to cover it.  It was still really cool, but we had to stop about 100 meter from where the glacier started for safety reasons as there are ice and rock falls every day on the glacier. 

As a little educational tid bit, glaciers are huge moving masses of old winter snow, compressed into ice, descending down a valley about 100,000 times slower than a river. Glaciers are constantly advancing and retreating, based on the weather and environmental conditions. They had pictures of the glacier back in the 1700s and 1800s and it was huge back then--taking up the entire 45 walk through river valley that we took to get the face of it. It has been retreating since then, although it hit a low point in the 70s, before expanding a bit again. If you don't believe in global warming, looking at the difference between the glaciers in pre and post-industrial revolution/introduction of European settlers, it's pretty hard to deny the drastic change. 

Anywho, we enjoyed the walk and then headed back to our backpackers for the night. The place we stayed was recommended to us by the hostel manager, Mike, back in Picton. It was called Rainforest Backpackers and it was a huge complex that had dorms, hotel-like rooms with en suites, and self-contained cabins. Mike described it as "awesome." Yeah, it was definitely NOT awesome. The facilities were pretty okay, yes. They had a free outdoor sauna that we enjoyed for a bit when we got back, and vouchers for a cheap dinner at the onsite restaurant and bar. $12 for an okay meal,  but it beat cooking in the slightly crowded kitchen. What made the place so bad, was the freaking Kiwi Experience. Kiwi Experience is a bus service that goes all over the country. You can get a ticket that is good for a year and you can take as many trips as you want in that year and get on and off wherever, whenever you want. It is primarily used by English 18-20 year old gap-students who are simply here to drink and party their way around the country. THEY were the problem. John and I got a dorm room in one of the big complexes, and while we had the room to ourselves for the two nights we were there it didn't matter--we might as well have been back in a college dorm room. The kids all left around 10-11 p.m. loud and making noise, yelling, and going up and down the stairs sounding like they were dropping bowling balls. The fact that John and I had the room closest to the outside stairwell didn't help. The walls were paper thin so when everyone trickled back drunk and loud between 2 and 4 a.m. it also kept us up. Not a good nights sleep at all--and I was already sleep deprived. Around 3 in the morning I got fed up and went out in to the hall and closed the door that led to the outside porch at the top of the stairs as there was a big pow-pow going on and we couldn't sleep through the noise. Luckily we were able in sleep in late the next morning, but I really wish we hadn't booked a 2nd night--I would have gladly gone to one of the smaller backpackers in town. 

The second day we just hung around a bit and relaxed and then went on a few walks around the area. Nothing special and there were more clouds that prevented us from getting nice views. The second night was a bit better, as it was a Sunday and many of the Kiwi Experience people had moved on. But, we still decided to get up at the crack of dawn the next morning to catch the sunrise on Lake Matheson in the Fox Glacier township. We had heard that dawn and dusk hours were the best times to go to the lake as there were fantastic reflections of Mount Tasman and Mount Cook in the water. So we got up in the dark at 5:30 a.m., got ready, not caring how much noise we made, and headed out at 6:00 a.m. to make the drive to Fox. We arrived with plenty of time and were joined on the lake path by a guy from the French part of Switzerland. We got to the first viewpoint before the sun even came up--when the sky was still starry and a deep blue. It was really pretty to watch the sun gradually come up and watch the lake awaken with animals. It was also really peaceful as there were only 3 of us there. 

Once the sun started to come up more we headed to the next viewing point which was aptly called "the view of views." Indeed, it was  gorgeous and the mountains were perfectly framed in front of the lake. We spent a good amount of time there, getting some great pictures. 

We stopped at a final spot that let you get right down to lake level where you could get some great reflections. 

We finished our walk around the lake around 9:00 a.m. and were glad we made the trip so early because the cafe right next to the parking lot was starting to get busy with visitors. We decided to head to Fox Glacier next, as we were staying in a (different) backpackers back in Franz Josef that night. Fox glacier is a bit smaller and the walk is a bit shorter. There were a lot of tour groups that morning walking on the path with us. They were led by guides who would take them onto the actual glacier, but those guided walks were too much money for John and I. We settled with stopping at the yellow ropes about 100 meters from the start of the glacier where, at both glaciers, there was a cheesy life-size cardboard cutout of a DOC person with their hand out, gesturing for people to stop. 

We got some nice pictures, as the Fox glacier, while smaller, was a bit cleaner and nicer looking than the larger Franz, and headed back out. 

When we got back into Franz Josef we checked into our new backpackers for the night that was just down the road. While it was rather busy that night and we had a full dorm room, it was still much quieter and there were no snorers. We had already done most everything there is to do in both towns, so we sat in the lounge and watched Monty Pythons The Meaning of Life, on (VHS!), for part of the afternoon. Then we decided to venture to a walk just down the road that led to some old gold mining tunnels. The walk was longer and steeper than I expected, and especially difficult wearing rain boots (as the woman told us the tunnels had a small river of water running through it). However, once we got there we were able to explore the small portion of the tunnels that was still open. It was really cool, though really dark, so I was glad we had a flashlight and that I was wearing my gumboots as we waded through the water. In the deeper parts of the tunnel we saw glow worms and a big cave weta! 

A fun adventure and it was back to the hostel for the evening where we all watched the news coverage of the two new aftershocks that created more damage in Christchurch. John and I made the smart decision not to stop there!

The next morning, it was off to Wanaka!