Advertisement
Published: June 20th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Dunedin to Milford Sound
Wednesday morning was another early start as I'm sure you won't be surprised to read. Well aware that we had a long drive ahead of us in order to get to the other side of the country, we wanted to get onto the road as soon as possible. Although we spent most of the day driving, the scenery on the way was spectacular. We passed through a number of small towns and a lot of farming land. Not only did we pass by dairy and sheep farms, but also deer farms, something which we had never seen before. Odd considering all the deer in Scotland
We stopped off in a small town where we parked the van beside a small park with toilet facilities. Climbing into the back of the van, we made up a couple of sandwiches for our lunch. After the quick bite, we were back on the road again and heading towards the mountains. We stopped in Te Anau to top up the van with petrol as it was a 4 hour return journey from here to Milford Sound, with no petrol station in between. Unfortunately the petrol prices here were
Milford Sound
The mist descended... even more expensive than Dunedin or anywhere else we'd been as it looked as if Caltex was capitalising on the tourist need.
The road from Te Anau was very windy and steep at certain parts, which is why they recommend around 2 hours in order to drive 120km. The views were amazing, however as the night drew closer so did the mist giving the hills a very eerie feel. Just as we approached the Homer Tunnel, which winds through one of the hills, the lights turned to red. We weren't too bothered by the lights changing until we noticed a sign indicating a 15 minute turnaround time for the lights! At least we had time to take in the amazing views though. Fortunately the lights also had sensors on them and we only had to wait about 5 or 6 minutes before we were driving through the steep tunnel.
Arriving in Milford Sound, the view was breathtaking, even with the mist. We parked up the van and headed to the information centre, although it had just closed. We did however get talking to an Australian couple who had just returned from a cruise, providing some sound advice on
the cruise options available for people like us, on a budget.
At the campsite we managed to book a special deal with one of the boat companies for the following morning. We lounged about after dinner on their sofas (playing some annoyingly addictive puzzle thing) before retiring to our van for a windy nights sleep.
Milford Sound
Our cruise was at 10am so after breakfast and changing the bed back to seats (this is the only annoying thing with campervans), we drove down to the moorings where the boat left from. It was a small boat and we were pretty pleased with the bargain price we had got it for. We only had about 10 others on the boat with us, although most of these pretty much watched their cruise through the lens of a camera. Not that we never snapped a good few photos ourself, but some people didn't seem to enjoy any view without snapping it constantly until it was gone.
The boat took us out for 2 hours right the way through the Sound and out to the Tasman sea. 7 more days boating and we would have been arriving in Australia! Afterwards,
the boat turned and went back taking in the opposite shore. The trip itself was spectacular and it gave us some of the best scenic views we'd ever seen.
It was different from the typical postcard picture as we had completely different weather. Rain was never far off, although it barely did more than spit. The peaks themselves still had a lot of mist lingering around and the sky itself was grey. This really fitted it though as the place itself felt completely otherworldly and it took the atmosphere to another level. Sunny weather would have been nice, but it would have just made it similar to other cruises we've done, but this one was definitely unique.
Due to the rain, the waterfalls became more spectacular and it meant that some dormant ones came alive. There wasn't enough rain to fund all of them, but we got some great ones. Particularly Sterling Falls and Bridal Veil. We also saw some seals and dolphins, with the dolphins swimming alongside the boat for a while. It was pretty cool.
After our cruise finished, we went on a walk nearby and got the classic view over Milford Sound. We ended
up leaving early afternoon as it was a fair drive to Queenstown, our next destination. We had to stop at the tunnel lights again and some random bird decided to rest on our wing mirror. It was pretty unperturbed by Emma and a girl from the van behind us doing a photoshoot of it. The drive back again was really nice and after a stop for lunch, we headed along the winding road to Queenstown.
Queenstown
Once again, we timed our arrival with twilight and after driving through the place for a short time, found a nice campsite just near the centre of the town. We plugged the van in and went down the hill to explore town. The town itself is really nice, and like Dunedin, is a million miles away from the "city" feel of Australian places. It definitely has much more in common with places like Aviemore, Fort William and Dunoon and didn't have much of a tourist affectation that a lot of "backpacker towns" have. In fact, we later found out Queenstown has long since had its tourism boom and was more in a decline (although this was disputed by a couple we met
in Hanmer Springs later on).
We took to it instantly and wandered about looking in some of the shops. Stopping off in a tourist shop, we looked to see what we wanted to do during our short time in Queenstown and to book it for the following day. Queenstown itself is famous for its vast selection of extreme "sports" such as Bungy Jumping (first place to do it commercially), Sky Diving, White Water Rafting, Hang/Paragliding, River Surfing, Jetboating, Canyoning, Canyon Swinging, and plenty more. Not only that, but it is excellent for winter sports and has 4 ski sites in the very near vicinity. We could only really afford to do one and were angling more for Hang-Gliding or Canyon Swinging as we had done both Sky Diving and White Water Rafting before and planned a Bungy in Taupo in the North Island. Tune in for the next blog to find out what we opted for.
Deciding a container of frothy amber nectar was in order, we wandered into Buffalo Club to satisfy our thirst. Leaving to do some necessary domestic duties, we ended up having some wine before drifting off to sleep in preparation for the next
day's activity.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.1s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 9; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0652s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb