Kayaking Milford Sound and Te Anau Glowworms

---

I can officially add Milford Sound to the list of some of the most beautiful places I've ever been. It's such a small area but the cliffs (towering thousands of feet high) over the water is breathtaking.

We were up very early for a 6:00am breakfast at the Cafe. I chose yogurt with muesli- very yummy. And coffee of course. We were at the kayaking meeting place around 6:45am. It was literally right down the road, a little further than where we had walked yesterday. I think there's two or three companies in the area but we went with Roscoe's. Our guide, Mendela, turned out to be amazing. She was a well-traveled nomad who seemed to do jobs that had to do with yoga and guided small boat tours (kayaks, canoes, etc.). She was very informative and funny, she taught us to "Shred the Gnar" by kayaking over the wakes of the large tour boats in the Sound. We hunted for elusive penguins (a different group on the tour did happen to see one briefly), watched a few different seals swimming and learned about the history of the Sound. Absolutely an amazing, very worth it kayaking tour. I think I took a billion photos.

Midday we headed south for the next stop on our trip, Te Anau. The terrain changed drastically as we left the cliffs and Alps and headed into plains with smaller mountain hills. Eventually we were just in hills, occasionally covered in sheep.

When we arrived at Te Anau, we were greeted with another giant lake. Seems to be an ongoing theme of water this trip. It was very hot. We rested in the hostel and checked the internet, uploaded photos- this was the first time we had WiFi since Queenstown.

Chris, for once, was the restless one and demanded I get off the internet and explore the town with him. So, we headed out towards the lake and just started walking in no direction in particular. There were lots of people out sunbathing on the grass by the walk. We ran into a pie shop that I actually had thought would be closed when we arrived- Miles High Pies. They happened to open and we bought three meat pies to try. They were delicious! We also ran the errand of dropping off our lockbox for the car relocation at the tour agency (they had an office in Te Anau as well). I still needed cold medicine so we hunted down a grocery store next. I always get a kick out of supermarkets in foreign countries. They have a lot of the same stuff (or not) as back home but it has funny names and packaging. Like the Hall's version of cough drops is called Throaties in New Zealand. A name like that would be incredibly made fun of in the States. We were also impressed with the giant beer fridge in the market. The rest of the group joined us back at the pie place so they could also get pies, once they discovered it was open. Linna and Nathan somehow got lost and ended up at the wrong pie place. It was nearly dinner time anyway, once we found them, so we ate at the only place with enough seats to accommodate us. An Italian restaurant named La Dolce Vita with a ton of seating. Tasty food, especially the desserts.

After dinner, we changed into warmer clothes. One thing we discovered in New Zealand was no matter how hot it got during the day, once the sun went down the temperature dropped to ice cold fast. We met up at the Real Journeys office at 8:15pm for our tour. It was later than we would have preferred since we had been up so early kayaking but it was all that was left when we booked a few months prior. We got on the boat as the sun was setting, and sailed into a group of islands on the lake. It was cold on the top deck but very pretty. I was very glad I'd changed into a jacket.

Eventually we arrived at the dock for the glowworms, maybe a half hour or so later. We were corralled around through a line in groups of about 20 people to 1 guide. It sort of felt like the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. Our guide explained the life cycle of the glowworms and then began leading us through the cave tunnel towards the grotto. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, so I have none to share. I stole one picture from Google images so you can see what the glowworms look like. In the dark, they look just like LED lights. It was fascinating and beautiful, like looking up into the stars but inside a cavern. Honestly, they could have strung up LED lights in that dark grotto and I could not have told you it wasn't a glowworm. After sitting on a rocky boat and gliding through the grotto for ten minutes, it was back out the cavern the way we'd come in. We were given coffee/tea, and were able to purchase cookies. Then we sat and watched a video on the glowworms while we waited for our boat to take us back. It was pretty much everything our guide had already told us, too. We arrived back at our docks after 10pm, headed right for the hostel and crashed. If I were younger, I'm sure I'd have been doing more partying. But just like our Japan trip the year before, our days tended to be so packed that we just didn't have the energy to go out at night.

---

Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Perfect photo
Nice reflections