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Hey All!!
The adventure began before we even arrived at the sound, with the Milford road which is famous for being the most scenic drive in NZ.The road was a 2 hour drive with no towns along the way…. Not even a petrol station. The road which only takes you to Milford was very windy and followed the mountain valley floor which had been carved out by a glacier thousands of years ago.
The drive was beautiful, lined with snow covered mountains all the way and huge lakes.One of the lakes we stopped at was called the "Mirror Lakes" this lake is famous for reflecting the mountains … When the ducks stopped playing around!!!
We eventually decided to call it a day with driving and stopped at one of the cheap campsites we had been told about, the one we stopped at was called Lake Gunn.
Lake Gunn was another huge lake, where we pulled up to the side of the lake front and made our camp for the night….. now this campsite was very basic…… with only a "Drop Toilet" in the middle of the woods, we had no light, no power and the only water that was available was the lake!!
So armed with our gas bottle and frying pan Kirst started to cook Chilli for dinner, whilst Lee tried and failed to get a camp fire going.
That night was a very cold night and was an early to bed for Lee and Kirsty!!
The next morning we opened the van door to be met with
1.an Amazing view of lake Gunn and the surrounding mountains
2.the ice cold weather outside
3.Thousands of biting sand flies
We decided not to have any breakfast that morning and headed for the sound. We got to the sound and boarded a small boat to take us down the sound and out to the Tasman sea. The captain was telling us all about the sound when he spotted a seal so we quickly ventured to the side of the sound to see if we could spot it………. Unluckily for us he had disappeared…. NUTS!
Lee was then saying to Kirst … "do you think we will see any dolphins, as we are usually lucky with the wildlife." To which Kirsts reply was "no we've been too lucky!"
But then in the distance…. We saw not 1 not 2 not even 3 but at least 20 fins……….. Was this going to be an ultimate Jaws scene???
NOPE….. it was a Calving pod of bottle nose Dolphins which were heading our way. These dolphins were huge…. And they then decided that they would play around the boat, jumping and riding the waves…. It was a surreal moment, here we were meant to be admiring the beautifulness of the sound, and the Dolphins stole the show. Even the Captain stopped the boat to come down and take pictures as it was rare for them to be this close and to spend along time round the boat!!!
After the amazing boat trip wechecked in to the only lodge in the sound and Lee cooked a fab curry!!!...... (can you tell who is writing this!!)
The next day we headed back to Te Anau.
When we arrived back in Te Anau we did a short hike along the river across the Indiana Jones rope bridge of death!!
After the walk we then decided to head on out of Te Anau and on to Queenstown!!
Missing you always
Love Lee and Kirst xx
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