Te Anau and Milford

The next day, we squeeze into our pregnant rollerskate (apparently the real car that was booked got stuffed up by Jucy) so onward we go via Te Anau (that's said like Tee Ah Now) to Milford. Weather is good - a little bit cloudy, as we drive by the snow covered farms. Driving is interesting, with one of our drivers showing us that the zig zag feel of tightly winding road can be experienced on nearly straight ones (rest assured the neck muscles will be in good shape for the shotover jet boat that I hope to do soon and doing the Nevis Bungy will seem like a past time for fairies). We're initally advised that we should take chains for the tyres, but the hire car company ran out of those too. It didn't matter in the end, as by the time we got to Milford we're lucky with the weather, and got to see some amazing scenery enroute but missed the 1:30pm boat by a whisker due to some sightseeing on the way. Instead, we check out the only evidence of civilsation in the area - the Blue Duck Cafe for a few hours where I get a snap shot of our passenger Helen and our drivers - the dynamic duo Sarah & Sarah.

The boat cruise is great. Not too surprising as the scenery here is world famous, but still great to see and as they say, no tour of NZ is complete without a trip to Milford Sound.



It's getting near sunset, so we head back to Te Anau to stay at the YHA there. I don't normally like the YHA's, but I do like this one, and if I can find 4-5 days of clear weather here again and a foot that is up to the task I'd easily stay here again while doing some tramping in this area.

Some shots above from Te Anau and the last one is out the back of the YHA.