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After leaving Lake Tekapo we drove a little further to our next destination - Mount Cook. Mount Cook is the highest mountain in New Zealand...... It had heaps of snow on it! We were driving up a single road along side Lake Pukaki, this was the identical colour of Lake Tekapo (I guess this is to be expected, being the next lake along, in the same part of the world...) Anyway, I found out that the colour of the rock is because of the 'rock flour' which is a sediment in the water. This so called flour was created when the lakes basin was gouged out by a stony bottomed glacier moving across the lands surface, with the rock on rock action grinding out fine particles that ended up being suspended in the glacial melt water. The sediment gives the water a milky quality and refracts the sunlight beaming down - hence the brilliant colour!
It was a cold night on the side of Mount Cook! And we woke to a heap of more snow which had fallen over night, this isn't how it should be! The only footwear I have to wear at the moment are my thongs.. I should start calling them Jandals now - as per Kiwi slang! (flip flops!) so its pretty cold!! And yes, I am wearing socks and sandals.....!! Oh the shame!
Out of mount cook we headed South East to the Otago region to a little coastal town called Oamaru, this was a sleepy town, and it was hugely populated, in comparison to the tiny 1 horse towns we've been driving through! My travel guide describes it as: "Nothing moves very fast in Oamaru, Tourists saunter, locals languish and Penguins waddle!"When we arrived into town it was raining, and when we left it was also raining, all in between, it rained too! So there was little to do, so we stayed cooped up and cooked dinner a la campervan! When we left the following morning we headed South again along the Southern Highway #1. Roughly 30km out of town there is a little town called Moeraki which has some random huge stones, perfectly spherical just dotted around on the beach!! Weird things! Also a pretty random thing to go visit, but since it was on route, why not stop... if only for a toilet break anyway!! So when we parked up we were greeted by some deer, not Bambi cute, but cute! They had a head of a cow, a body of a horse, and a bum of a koala... Im not sure whether Deer are supposed to have tails or not - these didn't!?!
Ok so the Moeraki Boulders.... Theyre just huge balls on the beach! It looks as though giants haven't finished playing with their marbles.... we spent a while climbing the boulders and then headed back on the road. We continued a further 100km, to Dunedin. This was our designated lunch destination, but the main road we took through Dunedin just took us through the student part of town! There was campus after campus after campus! Nowhere to dine, so we kept on going... we eventually pulled into a tiny little town, with the whole town on the verge of the main road, we pulled into the fishmonger, which doubled up as the 'chippie' so ordered our loot and had a glorious fish & chips at the side of the road for $10.00 NZD! This is about £5.00 GBP! Im loving the conversion here, I have felt ripped off for the last 10 months in Australia, with the stupid exuberant prices! This little town was somewhere between Dunedin and Balclutha. The scenery in this part of the country has been very similar to home, very ordinary, plenty of livestock, but nothing to write home about.... so we zoomed on by. At Balclutha we turned west and headed to our next destination Te Anau in the Fiorland region. As we were nearing Te Anau, we started having stunning scenery again, huge jagged mountains with snowy peaks... On arrival we booked our day trip for tomorrow, I think we deserve a rest from driving, so are going on a day trip to the Milford Sounds by coach. For the rest of the evening we made an early dinner, then hit the town! It is like a little ski resort, all quaint little restaurants with big blazing fires. But the odd thing was, the place was deserted?!? Literally, on the whole main street, inside shops / bars / restaurants and out on the street, there cannot have been more than 10 people?! I was aware that the most popular time to visit New Zealand was in the summer months (January & February) But its hardly past Summer, and its a ghost town! Im not complaining though, its really peaceful and nice!
Our trip to the Milford Sounds.
We were up at the crack of dawn, and picked up by Frank, our driver for the day. He is a local of Te Anau, so had heaps to tell us. Frank drove us the 119km from Te Anau to Milford and pointed out all the good look out points etc. We stopped off at a little boardwalk which took us on foot to a lake, the lake was called 'Mirror Lake' the unique name comes from the mirror like reflection it gives off.....So after a short walk through the wetland we climbed back on board and headed on our way, we stopped off for a toilet break and again the views were glorious, there were low cloud over the fields and around the mountains, the peaks of the mountains had a little amount of snow, which Frank said the snow had only arrived a few days ago.... I actually think bad weather follows me around! As we only arrived a few days ago also!
Along the route again, we saw heaps of waterfalls where the snow and ice melt water ran off the rocks, and we went through the avalanche zone, which was abit daunting! Although there wasn't enough snow for a serious avalanche disaster, there are often tree avalanches, where they fall from the sides of the mountains, as they grow on the rock on the cliff faces, they become entangled with the moss and other growing things on the face, so manage to survive this way - but if theres a storm, the wind can knock the trees off and bring them falling down into the valleys... Luckily we live to tell our stories!
To get us to Milford we have to go through the 'Homer Tunnel' The tunnel is 1207 Metres long, and goes THROUGH a mountain!! Its one way, so on a traffic light system (outside of Avalanche season) and the traffic lights take 15 minutes to change! And surprisingly, there isn't ever much of a queue!! At the end of the tunnel it opens up to the view of the Cleddau Valley, its kind of picture perfect. And would be Jeremy Clarksons dream road, after the tunnel there are dozens of hair pin bends to get down to the bottom of the valley, shortly after this hardcore road we arrived into Milford, where we boarded our boat for our journey through the Milford Sounds. The first thing you see when you board the board ( Other than the free teas and coffees) is the mighty Mitre Peak, this is said to be one of the tallest mountains in the world to rise directly from the sea floor. At a height of 1692 Metres, it definatley dominates the surroundings! And a fact for you here, maybe not so interesting, but here goes: It gets its name due to the top 450 metres closely resembling the shape of a Bishops headpiece....... Cough!!! Soon out into the sounds, the Bishops hat was way behind us, and the whole scenery was extraordinary, The sheer cliff faces and so on. On the boat we saw heaps of waterfalls, getting bigger by the minute. The Captain drove right up to the 'Stirling waterfall' both Luke and I were sat at the very front of the boat, OUTSIDE, so we got a little wet!!! It was fun seeing the mist from the waterfall so close. Not so fun afterwards, trying to dry and warm your already frozen hands!! We also saw some seals basking on rocks. They were 'New Zealand Fur Seals.' Thats all I can remember, although it is a truly magnificent place, and well worth the journey if you venture to this side of the world.
On the way back Frank took us to a couple of stop offs, mostly to see waterfalls and flowing rivers, which was nice, but it had got to the time of day where your ready to get home and have a nap!! Ha! Frank stopped at this stream where the water was over 99% pure, and the cleanest water in the world (Apparently!) So being the gannets we are, we drank from the stream! It did taste like clean water.... Water is water at the end of the day, so cannot describe it - other than it was Cold and wet! Then shortly after we arrived back to our home on wheels!
The route from Te Anau to Milford, or vice versa, can be done by walking, on the 'Milford Track' This is meant to be spectacular, and at the distance of 53.5KM it quite rightly should be! Im glad we did it on a day trip, and not on foot!!
And now some history & facts about the Milford Sounds from the leaflet.
·Piopiotahi is the Maori name for Milford Sound, which means 'a single thrush' is said to be drawn from the legend which told when Maui lost the treasure of immortality to the goddess of death.
·Milford Sound is 16kms in length and is the northern most of 14 fiords that make up the spectacular coastline of the 1,200,00ha Fiordland National Park, part of the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage Area.
·Captain Cook missed Milford Sounds on two occasions as he sailed along the Fiordland coast. Milford Sound is completely hidden from view from the open ocean so it was left to John Grono, a sealer, who finally discovered it in 1823 and named it after Milford Haven after his birthplace in Wales.
Thats all that I find remotely interesting, the rest in the leaflet uses heaps of words I could never pass off as my own, so wont even pretend to!
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