Tremendous Te Anau
(6th - 9th December)
After our stop at Lake Monowai we headed in the direction of civilisation again, in the form of the small town of Te Anau. Gateway to Fjordland, Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound can both be accessed easily from here, and the views are again spectacular.
We spent our first couple of nights in proper campsites and generally mooched about for the first day, taking a short drive to Lake Te Anau and eating our sandwiches there, which was nice - we were the only ones on the beach (except our faithful friends, the sandflies). On our 3rd day we ventured from the comfort of our campsite all the way to Milford Sound. Although I was here 5 years ago, it was refreshing to see how little has changed and how amazing the scenery still is. We set off reasonably early to avoid the bus loads of tourists. The road to the sound is also a well recommended drive just for the scenery, even if you don't do a cruise of the sound at the end. There are glacial valleys, mountains, lovely rivers and lakes and even a tunnel through one of the mountains (that may appeal to some, not to me).
When we arrived the other end we caked ourselves in insect repellent again, donned our supposedly-insect-repelling hats (there have definitely been insects landing on mine), our sunglasses and headed off on a cruise of Milford Sound, something I did last time too (minus the headwear). Thankfully the flies stayed back on the shore.
We saw lots of seals frolicking in the water, I think I saw a penguin (no-one else did), and of course, lots of lovely views again. This time we also took a trip to the underwater observatory on our way back to dry land. I was quite nervous of this concept as you have to walk down a windy (circular, not draughty) staircase which takes you about 10 metres under the shoreline into a pressurised glass-windowed observatory thing (I'm not a big fan of deep sea water). Our not-so-traditionally-kiwi guide (he was very Irish) taught us all about the wonders found beneath the surface, and it was actually really interesting which made up for the scare-factor. We were fortunate to have arrived on one of the few sunny days of the year (it rains for an average of 300 days a year in the area), and so the sea was looking very light and we were able to see all sorts of fish & coral. We saw black coral (which is actually white - it was named when they were looking at a dead specimen out of water, which, because it was a skeleton, was actually black... go figure) and some star snakes wrapped around the aforementioned coral (they're related to star fish apparently, but are snake shaped and tend to wrap themselves around coral).
We eventually caught a boat back to dry land (and to sand flies) and decided we would camp the night at another DOC site, as there were many along the road we were about to travel. Also along that road, just past the tunnel I was so scared of earlier in the day, was the bottom of a glacier/leftover snow from winter which had formed a sort of ice cavern. It looked amazing and having watched one couple slide all down the ice, I went up for a little investigate (not brave enough to slide myself), whilst Chris looked for Geological findings underneath. He soon told me to get off the ice, which I thought was quite strange considering he's usually the more adventurous of the two of us and this situation would usually be reversed. I soon realised why when he pointed out that you could see right through the 'cave' and it was melting away. The guy previous to me had probably been quite lucky not to fall in. After a safer explore further afield, we headed back to the car. Only then did we see the not-very-prominent signpost saying "DANGER. Falling ice. Do not proceed." DOH! They should probably have made that a bit clearer and perhaps put it nearer to the ice, rather than the grassy verge that everyone completely missed on their way to view the snow.
After safely arriving back at the car, we went in search of our DOC campsite for the night. We went to the first one we saw, and that is the picture that is in my previous blog post. I think we got the best spot of the best site and this was confirmed when many other campers turned up shortly after us only to find no room to park up, and off they went in search of somewhere else to compete with the beauty of Lake Gunn.
After our stop at Lake Monowai we headed in the direction of civilisation again, in the form of the small town of Te Anau. Gateway to Fjordland, Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound can both be accessed easily from here, and the views are again spectacular.
We spent our first couple of nights in proper campsites and generally mooched about for the first day, taking a short drive to Lake Te Anau and eating our sandwiches there, which was nice - we were the only ones on the beach (except our faithful friends, the sandflies). On our 3rd day we ventured from the comfort of our campsite all the way to Milford Sound. Although I was here 5 years ago, it was refreshing to see how little has changed and how amazing the scenery still is. We set off reasonably early to avoid the bus loads of tourists. The road to the sound is also a well recommended drive just for the scenery, even if you don't do a cruise of the sound at the end. There are glacial valleys, mountains, lovely rivers and lakes and even a tunnel through one of the mountains (that may appeal to some, not to me).
When we arrived the other end we caked ourselves in insect repellent again, donned our supposedly-insect-repelling hats (there have definitely been insects landing on mine), our sunglasses and headed off on a cruise of Milford Sound, something I did last time too (minus the headwear). Thankfully the flies stayed back on the shore.
We saw lots of seals frolicking in the water, I think I saw a penguin (no-one else did), and of course, lots of lovely views again. This time we also took a trip to the underwater observatory on our way back to dry land. I was quite nervous of this concept as you have to walk down a windy (circular, not draughty) staircase which takes you about 10 metres under the shoreline into a pressurised glass-windowed observatory thing (I'm not a big fan of deep sea water). Our not-so-traditionally-kiwi guide (he was very Irish) taught us all about the wonders found beneath the surface, and it was actually really interesting which made up for the scare-factor. We were fortunate to have arrived on one of the few sunny days of the year (it rains for an average of 300 days a year in the area), and so the sea was looking very light and we were able to see all sorts of fish & coral. We saw black coral (which is actually white - it was named when they were looking at a dead specimen out of water, which, because it was a skeleton, was actually black... go figure) and some star snakes wrapped around the aforementioned coral (they're related to star fish apparently, but are snake shaped and tend to wrap themselves around coral).
We eventually caught a boat back to dry land (and to sand flies) and decided we would camp the night at another DOC site, as there were many along the road we were about to travel. Also along that road, just past the tunnel I was so scared of earlier in the day, was the bottom of a glacier/leftover snow from winter which had formed a sort of ice cavern. It looked amazing and having watched one couple slide all down the ice, I went up for a little investigate (not brave enough to slide myself), whilst Chris looked for Geological findings underneath. He soon told me to get off the ice, which I thought was quite strange considering he's usually the more adventurous of the two of us and this situation would usually be reversed. I soon realised why when he pointed out that you could see right through the 'cave' and it was melting away. The guy previous to me had probably been quite lucky not to fall in. After a safer explore further afield, we headed back to the car. Only then did we see the not-very-prominent signpost saying "DANGER. Falling ice. Do not proceed." DOH! They should probably have made that a bit clearer and perhaps put it nearer to the ice, rather than the grassy verge that everyone completely missed on their way to view the snow.
After safely arriving back at the car, we went in search of our DOC campsite for the night. We went to the first one we saw, and that is the picture that is in my previous blog post. I think we got the best spot of the best site and this was confirmed when many other campers turned up shortly after us only to find no room to park up, and off they went in search of somewhere else to compete with the beauty of Lake Gunn.
posted by wobblepop at 4:43 am
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