Wanaka to Te'Anau and the Milford Sound

1/19 Sunday
    Today we will drive from Wanaka to Te Anau and Fiordland National Park.  We
pass through Queenstown and along Lake Wakatipu.  It’s huge, something like the
second largest lake in the southland (Lake Te Anau is the largest).  After the
lake the area opens up into a huge area of open undeveloped land.  We feel like
we are in the middle of nowhere.  After 3 hours of driving we are in Te Anau. 
We check into our hotel, which is called “The Village” and has a facade that
makes it look like a small city.  It reminds me of the movie “Westworld” and I
keep looking around for Yul Brenner as the robot in a blue cowboy outfit.  Te
Anau is known as the walking capitol of NZ.  They’re all kinds of tramping
(hiking) you can do.  The lake has a 46 K walking track around it.  It is said
it takes 3-4 days to walk it.  We walked about ½ mile of it.  We also visited a
trout observatory and a visitor center.  I had my first experience using an
Internet café and it was very easy and convenient.  They seem to locate them
alongside laundry mats in this town.  Dinner is Chinese food and then it’s
updating the journal and a stupid Steven Segal movie.  Tomorrow we travel North
to the Milford Sound.  A side note:  NZ Is a very backpacker friendly country
and the South Island has it’s share of cyclists we pass who were weighted down
with side bags making slow treks up some pretty steep mountains.  It’s a nice
sight and I give them the shakka sign when I pass by… Cool!

1/20 Monday
    Our adventure will now take us North from Te Anau to the Milford Sound.  A
beautiful fjord created from the grinding and melting of glaciers thousands of
years ago.  We have been told the drive will be a beautiful one and it is not a
lie. As we make the travel we see the sheer cliff faces that make up the fjord. 
Many are still snow capped.  The views are vast and stunning.  Magical was an
adjective used to describe it and it is an accurate description.  We stop
several times, one of the stops being Mirror Lake.  The sign posting which sits
in the lake is spelled backwards and it’s accurate display is mirrored in the
reflection of the lake.  We drove through the Homer Tunnel, which was
approximately ¼ of a mile long and is the darkest tunnel I’ve ever been in.  As
we exited we descend but we decide to pull over and get a picture of the view. 
We were then descended upon by what I thought was a hawk but was actually a
large parrot called a “Kia”.  They are a menace and a thief to the locals but to
us it was an exciting and up close look at this large bird…    two of them
landed on the car soon after Lisa got out to take the picture.  They decided to
get in the car but I was able to shoo them away and close the door.  Persistent,
they decided to start eating away at the seal around the windshield.  We snapped
a couple pictures and then move on before they eat the car.  We find out later
that damage caused by the birds is not covered by our rental car agreement… it’s
the dreaded “vermin clause”.  I think we escaped without a liable incident.
	
    Our next stop was the “Chasm”, a narrow and deep ravine with gushing water
and unique rock formations.  It’s a short trek for the view of the Chasm and we
see beautiful moss covered trees, ferns and other rain forest habitat. 
Eventually we arrive at the end of the road, which terminates at the Milford
Sound.  Here we have lunch and wait to board the Milford Mariner for an
overnight cruise in the Milford Sound.  The experience truly is magical.  We
enjoy a cruise ship experience, our own private cabin with a double window view
to the sound.  We anchor and do a little kayaking, enjoy dinner and meet two
couples, one from Auckland and one from England.  We visit the deepest
underwater observatory.  It’s unique because the immense amount of rain draining
into the sound creates a layer of fresh water on the surface and blocks light so
the observatory is unique in the species that are viewable.  Many are very
deep-water species that have risen to shallow depths and do so because the
tannins that wash into the water are blocking the surface light.  We are able to
view them at the observation stations whish is approximately 30 plus feet below
the surface.

1/21 Tuesday
    In the morning we head to where the sound meets the Tasman Sea.  From the
mouth of the sea the sound is very protected and quite hard to see.  It was
missed by explorer James Cook and only later discovered when another ship moved
close to shore to escape a storm.  The cruise back in leads us down the sound
and we are in its beauty surrounded by sheer cliffs, calm seas, cascading
waterfalls, beautiful valleys and snow-capped peaks.  We see the fur seals
returning to their familiar rock after feeding at night.  Later dolphins
cruising the sound in the early morning visit us; all this before 9 a.m.  We
dock back where we began and it’s an experience we will not soon forget.  We
retrace our steps back to Te Anua and then head south to Invercargill.  The
farther South we go the less people we see and the later the days last.  The sun
sets closer to 10 pm.  Invercargill is the largest city in the South island and
the architecture reflects the Scottish settlers of the past.  We are tired so we
check into our hotel, the “Kelvin Hotel”.  We have lunch around the corner at
the “Zoo Keepers” where corrugated metal has been formed into animals from the
wild.  There is a huge corrugated steel elephant on the front facade and a
corrugated zebra outside our window while we dined.  We consciously chose to
grab a nap and end up never leaving the hotel relaxing the day away with stupid
TV and room service for dinner.