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After checking out and being forced to write in the guest book by Sparky we once again put our map reading skills to the test and navigated our way out of Invercargill and towards Te Anau. We had discovered that the Southern Scenic Route not only ran from Dunedin to Invercargill but from Invercargill to Te Anau and then Te Anau to Queenstown, the exact route we had planned.
The roads and the scenery were predictably beautiful again but this part of the route was even nicer than the previous two journies. If the landscape was good on the last two trips, the scenery on this secion was stunning. The weather had also cleared up a bit, with the wind dying down which made the drive even nicer. We made our way round roads surrounded by rolling hills and mountains in the back ground making a couple of stops on the way.
The first of which was Cosy Nook, a small bay which had a large Mauri population in the early 1800's. Our next stop a bit further down the coast was McCracken's Rest, which was a little look out over the sea. The wind had picked up a bit again, creating crashing waves making their way to the shoreline. Next was the Cliffton Suspension Bridge, for some lunch and a quick look round. The bridge is no longer in use but was once vital to deliver goods around this part of New Zealand.
As we got closer to Te Anau the road and scenery seemed to get better and better and just before we arrived in town we made one last stop for the day, Frasers Beach. A small strip of gravel beach with trees and mountains surrounding it. After visiting Frasers Beach and then arriving in town, we were both pleased with Te Anau.
A small little town, which sits right on the shores of the massive Lake Te Anau, with the Kelper Mountains over looking it. This pretty little town and surroundings were what we have come to expect from New Zealand and it was refreshing after 5 nights staying in bigger towns and cities. We felt like we were back in New Zealand again.
The drive didn't take that long and when we arrrived and checked in the weather in Te Anau was lovely, the wind had dropped, the sun was out and the sky was blue. After checking into our hostel, which turned out to be more like a Motel (with our room and one other sharing a little kitchenette) we made the most of the nice weather and took a stroll along the lake front. On the way back to the hostel we spotted a pub which had a happy hour on, we couldn't refuse a cold beer sat in the sun, so we didn't. The end of November and we were both sat in t-shirts outside a pub, enjoying the evening sun.
That evening as we had our own little kitchentte and table and chairs just outside our room we managed to have our cheap steak dinner and relax with a cold drink, both very glad we hadn't eaten it the previous evening.
Te Anau being the nice town that it is a nice place to visit even if you decide to do nothing, but there are also several hiking tracks and activities you can do whilst there. One of the main one's is a trip up to Milford Sound, which normally involves getting out onto the water of Milford Sound itself.
Milford Sound is about a two hour drive from Te Anua through the Fiordland National Park, which means more stunning views and more twisty black tarmac to follow, fun times. Our boat trip on Milford Sound was at 13:15 and we left Te Anau in plenty of time to enjoy the journey there and make sure we didn't miss our boat either.
Our journey took us through the National Park and up to the ........... tunnel, which has traffic signals, which only change every 15 minutes. Luckily there is a gravel area next to it so we, along with others, parked up and got out the car. Snow capped mountains towering around and above us, Kea parrots mooching about and waterfalls crashing to the ground was our entertainment whilst we waited, not bad. Our wait was only about 5 minutes though so once we spotted the lights had turned green, it was straight back in the car and down through the tunnel. In total we were only in the tunnel for a few minutes but when we emerged on the other side, you would have thought we were in a different country. Before the tunnel we had left behind relitively clear skies and sunshine, on the other side we had driven into low lying cloud, which hung in the valley, obscuring the no doubt breathtaking view.
There are several places to stop on the way through to Milford Sound, but we thought we would save these for the way back. Once we arrived, we quickly ate a packed lunch before making our way over and boarding the boat. With our car rental we got buy one get one free for the cruise which was a great bonus.
We left the pier and headed out into Milford Sound. The weather, although it wasn't raining, could have been better and the low lying cloud that had greeted us on this side of the tunnel was still about, restricting the view slightly. Our captain pointed out various highights including the ......... waterfall, ................., & ...................... - look at map.
One highlight which was a planned part of the cruise was the sleeping seals, who had positioned themselves on a rock, to recover from fishing. The boat got right up close and personal with them oinly a few metres away. Not that any of them really took any notice of us and the big boat pointing at them, they just continued with their 40 winks. The second and not so planned bit of wildlife was the arrival of a pod of dolphins, which apparently only 1:4 trips see. They too got very close to the boat and had a little swim around us, before making there own way. It was almost as if they were trying to sneak past the boat, before they were spotted, with a "okay, you caught us, quick take a couple of pictures and be on your way" attitude, an extra bonus though.
Before long it was the end of the trip and we safely set foot back on dry land and made our way back to the car. Now for the 2 hour drive back, not too much of a chore driving those roads again.
On the way back we first stopped off at the Chasm, which is a waterfall of sorts and was pretty impressive to look at, before reaching the tunnel again. The weather had improved quite alot since we drove through in the morning and this time we could take in the views. We would have happily been stuck waiting for the lights for 15 minutes but again we got 'lucky' with them and were there less time than before.
The weather on the other side of the tunnel was just as nice, perhaps even nicer than earlier, so with this in mind we had a couple more stops on the way back. One, a lookout point which gave views across thick rainforest and one stop at the Mirror Lake. Now we were both excited by this as when you look at pictures of New Zealand, you always see clear days, big snowy mountains being beautiful reflected off a perfectly still lake, this was our chance to get one of these pictures for ourselves.
If we are toatally honest we both felt slightly dissapointed with the Mirror Lake. Not only by the size of it, but also the reflections we got off it were not as good as we hoped. We still got a couple of half decent pictures, but they were not the standard we wanted. The water wasn't as still as it could have been though, due to a slight breeze and also due to the little duckling's which seemed to be drag racing across it, which made up for the quality of the pictures.
Our last stop beforing arriving back in town was the Te Anau downs, more of walking track really but we pulled over as it looked out over Lake Te Anau and gave us the oppotunity for a couple more pictures.
It was another stunning evening and with being out all day and not leaving any windows open our little glass box of a room was really quite hot, which was made even hotter with us cooking dinner. There was only one thing for it, a post dinner stroll to the shop for an ice cream. Which did the trick.
Again, the evening the followed the pattern of the last few nights and consited of Heroes and packing up our bags, ready to head back to Queenstown, the last destination on our little road trip.
I think this was in an earlier blog, but intially we had planned to do our road trip in the other direction, but due to Sir Elton we reversed it. For this we say a big 'thank you' to you Elton John as Te Anau was lovely and we definitely managed to save the best 'til last.
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