Te Anau and Milford Sound

Kimberly and I went to Te Anau for a couple of days so we could be really touristy and do a boat cruise of Milford Sound.

We caught an Intercity Coach at 2pm on Tuesday and arrived at Te Anau at around 6:30 (yes, it was a long bus ride). We stopped at Peggydale on the way for a 30 minute break. We also stopped in Gore for a little while since it was the halfway mark. The drive was amazing. We passed through more small towns than I can count.

Te Anau is a small town that sits along the largest fresh water lake in all of Australasia - Lake Te Anau. It's bordered by incredibly tall and beautiful mountains. We checked in at the YHA hostel and then wandered around for a bit. We got some pizza and then did some food shopping at the local supermarket.

The next day, we woke up at about 8 or 830 to get ready for another fun day of travelling. We caught a Real Journey tour bus from the waterfront at the Lake at about 1030. We drove through the Fiordland National Park to Milford Sound. We couldn't help but notice that we were the youngest people on the bus; everyone else was at least 30 years older :].

Driving through Fiordland is indescribable, truly. There were so many beautiful sights. I just can't believe it. Everything took my breath away. There are places that exist that are so beautiful, it makes me feel overcome with emotion - sometimes to the point where I just want to weep.

We did a lot of dilly dallying, which was nice. We stopped every now and then to get off the bus and walk around and take pictures.

Like this:

Mirror Lake




Here's a glacier on top of a mountain (I had never seen a glacier before).


Here I am with a glaciated valley behind me :D.

The bus driver talked about how the valleys here are prone to tree avalanches. Roughly 25% of the trees are able to embed their roots into the mountain. The other 75% simply cling to each other for support. Isn't that amazing? The forest survives because all the trees depend on one another's strength. When the rain and the wind are too strong, some of the trees fall apart. When a few of them let go, they all come tumbling down.

We got to Milford Sound at about 1:15. The sound, which actually isn't a sound at all but really a fiord, was incredibly beautiful. I took way too many pictures:


The captain said this waterfall was three times the size of Niagara Falls.


This is a view of the sound behind us from the coast of the Tasman Sea. From out at the ocean, the sound is completely concealed, so much that when Captain Cook sailed past it, he didn't realize it was there at all.


Here's the NZed coastline out at the Tasman Sea.


Here I am with Milford.


I wish I had a panoramic camera so you could get a better idea of how amazing and massive the sound really is.

The entire cruise was about 2.5 hours. It was windy and cold out on the deck, but completely worth all the amazingness.

The tour finished at about four and we headed back to Te Anau and got there at around 6. We had to rush dinner because we did the glowworm cave tour at 7pm.

We got on another boat at Lake Te Anau and went upstream for about 30 minutes. The Aurora Caves are incredibly long. It would take about three days to travel through all of them. The glow worm center only takes visitors into a tiny portion of the cave system, though.

We split into smaller groups of 12 or 13 and eventually went on a really slow and silent boat ride through some of the caves. It was amazing to see all the glow worms glowing in the cracks and crevices of the cave. Inside the cave was completely dark. I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face. Looking up at the ceiling of the cave was really neat. It looked like the night sky and all the glow worms were the stars.

It was such an amazing experience. I'm glad we did it.

We got back to the hostel at around 9:30 and quickly got ready for bed as we were exhausted from all the travelling and we had to be up early in the morning for our bus back to Dunedin.

I'm not going to Gore anymore with Kimberly and Dom during the break, but that's okay. My Mid-semester break has already been pretty eventful. Tonight we're going to Andy's place in Waitati again for a party.

I. am. so. excited.

:D