Howdy how!

Life is good. Life on holiday in New Zealand is better.

Lying on the sand beside a little river (or just kinda running water) watching four beautiful, powerful mountains around you and a clear blue is somethig I did yesterday in Milford Sound. Absolutely priceless I'd say.

Sunday 25th / Te Anau

Our p**** wagon took us to Te Anau, a little lake side town, on Sunday morning. We had few beers and a little playcards nite behind us, we DID try to go out but gave up in the last minute... Anyway, nice Sunday ride to Te Anau was nice, we stopped for a coffee in a small little town which was quite different to what we'd seen so far. In land little towns seem to lack this cool surfer/skater atmosphere that we've experienced in all other cities so far. Instead, we saw pure amarijuntteja (in spanish carrulos i think, english word i have no idea sorry...) with cars that have wings! Yibii, it was interesting indeed.

In Te Anau we checked in to our family holiday park lodge room which was just beside the lake. We were a bit against the holiday park kinda accommondation but the park turned out to be well equipped and we had the first time a tv in our room! We had barbecue with delicious vegetables, lamb and bananas, njami njami smak smak. After early dinner we drove to another lake about 20km from Te Anau, Manapouri. From there I did my first NZ Walk! It was about 20 mins lovely little forest walk with loads of sandflies, again weird trees and beautiful lake surrounded by mountains. Huh, I think I actually swet a tiny little bit, but I'm sure it was just the heat, no? Oh and I have to mention that I got to use hair dryer the first time in almost a week, luxury! BTW my hair is falling down with a speed of light, so won't probably have long hair next time we see... Hmpf.

Monday - Tuesday 26-27th / Milford Sound

We woke up on Tuesday morning at 7 to be early in the famous Milford Sound Road which leads to this one of the most popular tourist spots in NZ. Lonely planet describes the road being full of buses and campervans if travelling during normal hours and weather to be nothing else than rainy in Milford Sound. So we were not getting our hopes up at all for the weather and were very happy that it was raining only a tiny little bit on our driveway there. Scenery was gorgeous already from the beginning of the road and just got better and better the closer we got.

We stopped at half way to do my first proper walk, though only 3 hour short one too. Key Summit walk was beautiful, quite a bit of ascending walk on top of the Key Summit mountain (919m) and then walk back. Route was nice, dry and not crowded at 9 o'clock at all, I enjoyed a lot! I saw many little and few bigger waterfalls, rainy forest, mountains (with snow on top), weird trees and flowers and stuff (sorry, did not bother to find out exact names of the flora we saw...). Also our friends, the sand flies, were well present during the walk. After the walk we had lovely noodle lunch cooked in the camping cook thing, trangia. I think I can cook with that next time by myself, useful new skill, eh!

After walk the Milford Sound Road just got amazing. The scenery was something I've never seen and did not expect to see here either (obviously did not read that many tourist guides with pictures...), but there it was in front, in the back and on the sides of us, for 1.5 hours. I was literally sitting in the car my mouth wide open saying something like "oh s***, look that.. oh my god, how can this kinda scenery exist.. can we stop to take pictures?". Thanks to Sami he was very patient and we did stop few times. I know it's boring to look this kinda pictures if you haven't seen the view with your own eyes, for that reason I recommend this route to everyone. Just gorgeous, can't describe it better. Noora - i feel sorry for you guys that you missed this, definitely the high point of our trip so far and it will be pretty hard to beat... One thing i have to say about the Kea birds which are here known to be very playful and nasty with cars. They certainly are, we saw them crashing cars in the queue for the tunnel leading to MS and then there again in the parking area. Colourful lovely looking fellas but with nasty nature and habits. I do like the sound they make, will use that next time in our animal sound game!

Our accommondation in Milford Sound was a lovely lodge in the valley surrounded by mountains and little river connection to the sea. We were SO LUCKY with the weather during our 2 days stay that we could not believe. IT DID NOT RAIN AT ALL! All people in the lodge said it is very exceptional as it rains almost 28 days a month. So we of course took advantage and booked ourselves to a half-day sea kayaking trip for Tuesday. I hadn't done kayaking before so it was quite exciting and a bit scary too as I'm not the most confident person in the water. It all went very well and I enjoyed again a lot of this new activity, will definitely try again. Trip was 4 hours in Milford Sound itself so the view was again something incredible. Mountain shape of elephant and another of lion. Little seals that we could almost touch, so close we were. Dolphins jumping around the kayaks (also very rare). Huge waterfall which brings all electricity to Milford Sound so powerful it is and sun shining from clear blue sky. Do not have to say more i think.

Our roommate in Milford Sound deserves her own section in this blog. She is a japanese lady, called Young Kim, 61 years old world traveller, priest and mountain lover. She joined us on Monday after being 4 days walking alone the Milford track known as one the most difficult tracks in NZ. It turned out that she is a complete walking masterhero with experience from places like Alaska, Switzerland/French Alps, Camino Santiago Spain and she lives near mountains in Japan after retiring and moving out from Tokyo. She had done already Kepler track here before the Milford one and she was heading for more being in NZ 2 months together. Her knowledge about Europe was amazing and her view of life very admirable. This lady is a hands-up big time, great to meet these kinda people, gives a bit different view to what you do don't you think? It certainly did give to me...

Wednesday - 28th / Queenstown

So now we are in Queenstown which seems to be a nice alpine kinda city full of all sorts of crazy and non-crazy activities. Not sure what we'll try, but there has been discussions about River Sledging which is something like going down white water river with a thing that is like surf board with steering wheel... We did say in Dunedin that we'll definitely go out in Queenstown once here, but to be honest, I would put my money for not going.. For some reason I don't feel at all going to a bar, which is so nice change, yuhuu! Will go to cinema tonite, that'll be excitement enough for me now.

See you soon!

Lotta

Quote of the week: "They told me Camino de Santiago (900 km) takes 50 days, I finished it in 42 and then had to stay there for 8 days doing nothing. Next time I think I'll do it in 30" - Young Kim, 61, Japan

Flora & Fauna of the week: Beech tree, big mountains, Little Seal, Dolphin, Kea bird, Sandfly

Listened this week: 32's, Allan's playlist, Coldplay Viva la vida, Kings of Leon (only CD in our p**** wagon), silence (no radio in MF), receptionist girl playing Yann Tiersen with piano in Milford Sound Lodge (Hanna, you would have loved it)