Kiwis!! and deer!!

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Today I had yet another fabulous cooked breakfast of fried eggs, bacon, tomatoes and tinned spaghetti - and cereal and coffee - all included! Hurrah! When I told the people there that I was going to Milford Sound they said it was going to rain BUT that was a good thing as it made waterfalls...

Anyway - 2 hours driving to Queenstown and nowhere to park. The girl in the info centre wasn't very informative and said there were only afternoon trips to the glow worms the next day. She said I could park up at the Gondola so I did but I had to park on the grass...

The Gondola ride was fabulous and the weather was beautiful so I had a great view of the whole bay. Took loads of photos and then had a go on the Luge, which is like a little Go-Kart at the top of the mountain - it was cool but I am rubbish and spent most of the time looking at the track rather than the view (and it was called the 'Scenic Route'!)

Down from there and it was Kiwi feeding time at the Kiwi Life Bird Park so I rushed in and got to see them being fed. You have to look hard though as they are nocturnal and they put special red lights on so we can see them but they can't see the red light so they don't mind. They were so cute and funny - big fat bodies and big feet and long legs! And apparently they lay huge eggs for their body size so they only lay like one every 2 years or so and the female's insides get all squashed up and it takes her a while to recover... no wonder they are endangered! Then I wandered round and saw other birds and huge lizards that like never move (so I have no way of knowing if it was real or not...)

So while I was up the top of the mountain I got a leaflet on the Glow worms and it said I could get information down by the pier so off I went to see. The woman there was really nice and called the place and said I could book a twin set with the Glow worms and Milford Sound. It would mean I would have to drive like crazy between the 2 but hey! So I parted with my dosh and she let me go down into this cool underwater observatory for free! It looks out onto the lake and it is like an aquarium only the people are in the glass case and the fish are free! There were huge trout and eels and these ducks kept diving right down to get the food too. You could pay a few dollars and food would go out to them so they kept hanging around waiting. The ducks looked really cool as they had their water-proof-ness so they looked silver when they dived down but they were a bit too quick to catch with the camera.

After that I had the biggest crepe in history (Nutella and coconut and way too big even for me!) and got on the net to book a hotel room. I wanted an up-grade - i.e. my own bathroom, tv, tea and coffee stuff so I splashed out on a motel room (only $70) for two nights in Te Anau and then set off to get there.

When I stopped for petrol about 45 mins out the station man said there had been an accident along the road and after a while I was stationary while the helicopters and ambulances and fire engines sorted out some poor bugger. Half an hour later we were off again and fortunately not going too fast as we were in convoy when I see a shape at the side of the road. Next minute a HUGE deer runs out in front of me! Fortunately it ran right across the road before it stopped as if I had hit it I know who would have come off worse! But it was a little scary to say the least...

Finally got to Te Anau and my huge motel room - stocked up on snacks and tried to sort out all my rubbish!

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