Te Anau

I made it to New Zealand. Over a week ago. I'm a little behind on my posts. It was questionable for a hot minute whether I was going to be allowed into the country. I had an immigration snafu a few years ago and this is the first time it has come up since then. I did expect some questions, and I did get them.  Fortunately after a couple of hours of hanging around, I was allowed into the country. The story behind this will come some another time. Maybe. 

So I made it to Queenstown. Unfortunately accommodation has been a problem and has hindered my planning a little bit. So I only had one night. I will come back to my time in Queenstown in my next post since I did have a 2nd night after visiting Te Anau. So on my 2nd day in New Zealand, I got on an early bus to the closest town to Milford Sound. Here I could figure out my plan for visiting Milford.

Apparently the ride out to Te Anau is very pretty, but I fell sleep since I didn't get much sleep the night before. I arrived in town and headed to my accommodation, which consisted of a bed in a large room with camping and a motel attached. Which is called a holiday park. Really not much different from most places, but there was a fee to use the kitchenware. I thought that was a bit odd, but good thing I had a few things on hand like a collapsible bowl. I couldn't check in yet, so I went in search of wifi. Fortunately the town library offers free wifi, so planted myself there for a bit to do some South America planning. I'm currently trying to coordinate some visits from family and friends in Argentina and Peru. Which is very exciting. Except I've barely planned what I'm doing in New Zealand. Since everyone needs to buy plane tickets, I want to be sure we are in agreement on dates. It will all work out and I'm thrilled I get to see more friends, but more importantly some of my family on this trip.

So far my time in Te Anau isn't very exciting. And doesn't get much better that day. I eventually checked in, headed out to explore a bit around town and Lake Te Anau. I had another another wifi session at a cafe on the lake where I enjoyed some tea.

Lake Te Anau.

At this point, I needed to decide on how I was going to explore Milford Sound. I researched what it would cost to take a bus and then a cruise around the bus, renting my own car and the cruise, or doing a tour. Obviously a tour is the easiest, but would it be the cheapest? It wasn't, but it would allow for some stops along the way at various viewpoints. After stopping at a few places, I was able to secure a spot on a small bus for the following morning at a discounted backpacker price. Excellent. I then enjoyed my venison meat pie as I walked along the lake for a bit.

Venison pie.

On my way back to the holiday park, I got a few groceries and hit up a bar to enjoy some local Shiraz. It was a low key night and I needed to get some sleep, so I made my way back to get comfortable and get to bed.

The following morning, I got picked up by the minibus and we went around to pick up the remaining tourists. It was a small group of 4 Americans (including myself) and one German, and our tour guide, who was also German. Her accent was an interesting mix of German and Kiwi. Hard to place at first, but then she explained how she came to live in New Zealand.

We hit the road and drove along Lake Te Anau for a while, which is the largest freshwater lake in Australasia (inclusive of Australia, New Zealand, and other Pacific islands). We stopped for our first viewpoint at Te Anau Downs.

Lake Te Anau.

We continued on our way and made some more stops, including dropping off some packages at a few farms. There's only one road that goes to Milford and it's not very populated, well except for all the tourist buses. Our guide has multiple roles, including package delivery service. As we continued on the road, we checked out Knobs Flat and saw a few mountains in the distance. It was looking like a very promising day for the tour.

Knobs Flat.

At some point we had entered Fiordland National Park, the biggest in New Zealand. I wish we could have stopped more times to see additional sights, but I was also anxious to see Milford Sound. The views were so beautiful as we drove up and back down the mountains. We reached Homer Tunnel and got another picture opportunity since we had a few minutes for the tunnel to open up for traffic.

Outside Homer Tunnel.

We made it back down the mountain and reached Milford Sound for our 10:30am cruise. The boat wasn't actually that full, which made the 2 1/2 hours way more pleasant. We made a loop around Milford Sound, which included going out to Tasman Sea. The last time I was at Tasman Sea was in Australia and was slightly different weather and conditions. All along the cruise, we saw some beautiful sights.

The start of the cruise.

Tasman Sea in the distance.

Apparently it's very beautiful when it rains since there are thousands of waterfalls off the cliff faces, but I am kind of glad that it didn't rain. It made being outside way better. Although at various points, I did get sprayed on by the waves, so it was almost like it was raining. It was also way windier than I anticipated. I was ok with my layers, but one more wouldn't have hurt. Good thing for the unlimited tea and hot chocolate.

Milford Sound.

Falls.

Hanging out on a boat.

After the cruise, we met back up with our guide and made our way back to Te Anau, but not before a few hikes. First up was a short hike to the Chasm. It was only about 15 minutes or so, but saw some gushing water over some cool rocks.

The Chasm.

Next up, was the Gertrude Saddle hike. This is meant for more experienced hikers since it's not very well marked, but we had our guide to lead us. This was a little bit of a longer hike and up into the mountain valley. We saw a lot of alpine flowers and had some nice views of the mountains. We actually saw the mountain where Sir Edmund Hillary practiced for his historical Mount Everest climb. No climbing for me though. 

Alpine hiking.

From there, we headed onto the Lake Gunn Nature Walk, where it felt like we were walking through an enchanted forest. There was moss and fallen trees everywhere you looked. The beach trees rot from the inside and since they have shallow roots, they fall over consistently. And then moss and other trees grow on top of them. It makes for a very surreal walk through the forest.

Looking for fairy tales.

New Zealand is known for a few things and the our last stop included a photo opportunity of sheep. I know boring. But I had to do it since there are so many more sheep than people in this country. Possibly the highest density of sheep in the world. This tidbit would need to be fact-checked of course.

Sheep.

We arrived back in Te Anau and  relaxed a bit.I found some wifi, hit up the grocery store, and made dinner back at the holiday park. I also sorted out my accommodation and was headed back to Queenstown the following morning. From there, off to Wanaka for a few days.