New Zealand

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Hi just to update you on our travels we have travelled to Fiord Land and Southland the weather was very extreme here, lots of rain an annual rain fall of 7 metres in this region but the fascinating thing was all of the water falls you would expect to see just one or two but here we must of seen hundreds due to the heavy rain fall it was quite amazing.
We took a cruise boat into Milford Sound it is really a Fiord because a sound is created by a river eroding a v shaped valley and then flooding with sea water, where as a Fiord is a u shaped valley crated by a glacier and flooded with sea water, at its deepest it was 300 meters deep and in one period of 24 hours they had 500mm of rain. When we went out on the boat we were taken very close to some of the waterfalls, which completeley soaked the decks you could go into the fall if you wanted but a little to cold to do that maybe in summer time. We saw New Zealand Fur Seals basking on the rocks not sure we would want to do that?
After Milford Sound we travelled to Otago Peninsula which was very beautiful this is the home of the rare yellow eyed penguin, which we were lucky to see from a distance, we saw seals playing in the sea, very large sealions sleeping on the beach really close up, and a male swimming in the sea and then he came back to the beach to sleep.
We also went to see the Little Blue Penguins the smallest penguins in the world we watched them come in from the sea, after fishing all day quite a slow process, for them to get back to their burrows we saw 30 all together we could not take photos it was just a watching expereince but very lovely.
We have been to Mount Cook National Park the highest mountain in New Zealand surrounded by the beautiful Pukaki Lake, we did a big walk here but the weather was quite good so we had good views of the Southern Alps, we are at present heading to kaikoura which is on the East Coast where we are going to go whale watching we will update again soon love Mick and Julie.

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Photos

Fiordland Southland
waterfalls on a rainy day in Fiordland

Milford Sound
On board Sinbad waterfall cascading onto boat

Fiordland Southland
Milfiord Sound looking a little cloudy

Firodland Southland
View all around Fiordland

Otago Peninsula
Sandfily Bay Mum and pups relaxing on the beach

Otago peninsula
Sandfly Bay male sealion coming to rest after swimming in the sea freely for us to watch.

Aoraki Mt Cook National Park
View into Hooker Valley looking onto Mount Cook

Oamaru
Morning sunrise Devils Bridge Wetland

Aoraki Mt Cook National park
Swing bridge in the Hooker valley

South Canterbury mackenzie Country
Lake Tekapo the reason this lake is so blue is because of the rock flour sediment in the water caused by a glacier scraping over the rocks.

Comments

[Sue]

Stunning scenery, but much more western than your other places. I think that NZ is my favourite of all the places you've been. I was supposed to be going up Triffan last week, but in the end road closures and blizzards forced us home. Triffan will have to wait - maybe you will come with me when you get back. The hippy van looks good, I hope it is comfortable and that you enjoy the rest of your time. See you soon. Love Sue