Te Anau / Milford Sound

 Monday afternoon we took off on the 2 hour drive southwest to Te Anau. Te Anau is located at the beginning of Fiordlands National Park, which is home to some of New Zealand's most popular great walks. The Great Walks are several day backpacking trips you can take; They have preplanned stops with huts along the way. Two of the main ones are the Kepler Track and the Milford Track. Our intent for staying in Te Anau was to be able to take a day trip to Milford Sound (which is another hour and 45 minutes past Te Anau). The only place to actually stay in Milford Sound is a fancy (pricey) lodge. 

We were happy to stay in a Top 10 Holiday park in Te Anau. This time we stayed in a two bedroom motel room, which was actually two motel rooms that were connected with a door in the middle. It was VERY basic, but did the trick. It was nice for the kids and us to have our own spaces. We had a mini fridge and a kettle to boil water for coffee in the morning - all we needed. The TV was limited to only a few channels - at night, Jay and I got really into a show called Bondi Rescue, a reality show about the lifeguards at Bondi beach in Australia. We'll be scoping them out when we go there in a few weeks - lol.  I digress, back to Te Anau. Monday afternoon/evening we walked around the little town of Te Anau and down to the lake. The kids found a park and we ended up finding this awesome spot for dinner - The Red Cliff Cafe. 

Greetings from the Top 10

The kids rented these pedal carts at the Holiday Park and had fun doing laps around the grounds

Fun at the local park

Kids meal - $24 NZ dollars ($14 US dollars). House made hummus with carrots, apple slices, cheese, bread, chix nugs, carrot ginger soup, marshmallows, and a soda! 

Pinot flight at dinner

local lambs in town - unsupervised with a donation box if you want to help the farm they come from 

Are the lambs celebrating Halloween?

Lake Te Anau

                                                                                  Looking down the main street in Te Anau

Tuesday - Milford Sound

We signed up for a guided tour to the sound with "Trips and Tramps."  The trip was only us and one other couple plus the guides.They picked us up bright and early at 6:30am in the van to start our adventure! We drove the hour and 45 min. to Milford Sound and parked at the main boat terminal. It was really peaceful and there was NO ONE there. The weather was rainy, rainy, rainy, which is typical for Milford Sound. 

As the first part of our trip, we got on a small water taxi that took us across the bay to Sandfly Point. It's called Sandfly point for a reason - lots of little black flies, almost more like mosquitos, swarming around and ready to bite. The myth is that a Maori God put the Sandflies there so no one would stay too long in such a beautiful place decreasing the chances of people ruining it. 

Then we started an 11KM out and back trek on the last portion of the Milford Trail. Our guides were absolutely wonderful; three young gals in their 20's who had tons of interesting facts about the area as we hiked. Finn became BFF's with one of the other tourists in our group, a 20-something year-old guy from Sydney. We never caught his name, but Finn chatted his ear off; we had to tell Finn to hang back and give the guy some space to be with his wife...haha. The hike ended at a waterfall and bridge, where we stopped for about 20 min. and had hot cocoa (milo), tea, and coffee-plus some snacks. The rain really started to pick up on the walk back. We spotted an owl - which is evidently a very rare thing to see! Once back to Sandfly point, we were picked up by the pre-scheduled water taxi and taken back to the main terminal at Milford sound, where we had about 30 min. to use the bathroom and eat lunch before we got on the 1:30 cruise to explore the sound. 

The cruise was great, thankfully they had cozy, WARM, indoor seating. Plus, there were places you could step outside on the deck of the boat to view the sound. There was also an observation deck up top that was mostly uncovered. There was lots of rain, but we spent most of the first hour of the cruise outside as the boat went out to the mouth of the sound and turned around at the ocean. The best way to describe the sound can be seen in the photos - more waterfalls in one place than I've ever seen and sheer mountains coming out of the water...unbelievable! 

There are LOTS of cruises around the sound that vary in size. I'd say our boat was one of the smaller ones, which I preferred! Finally, after the two hour cruise, we loaded back up in the van and made the return trip to Te Anau. It was a LONG but TOTALLY-WORTH-IT day! 

starting to see waterfalls

The beginning of the hike

first glimpses of Milford Sound 

waterfalls ALL OVER the place

Paper tree - used to roll tobacco cigs back in the day

Under the bridge - our turn around spot

waterfall at bridge

breaking for a hot drink

people have kayaked down this! 

two cuties drinking milo (NZ hot cocoa)

I spy a birdy

another bird creeping in the rocks

a rare owl sighting 

lots of rain on the way back

my toes hurt...guide, Tamara in background

kidney plant 

we had to walk this extra little bit to the water taxi due to low tide

one last moment to soak it all in

The Cruise around the Sound

Challenge - can you find two penguins?

seal spotting

The boat drove up to this waterfall and you could stand on deck to get a "glacial facial"

final shot looking back as we came in to dock