Te Anau (including Milford Sound), South Island, New Zealand

8th December – 11th December 2017

After we left Wānaka at 2.30, we drove towards Queenstown for the night – we had to spend a night in Queenstown because the bus wouldn’t go straight from Wānaka to Te Anau. The driver of the bus was full of energy and chatted to us the whole way, so there was no chance to drift off and have a nap.

We pulled up, near our hostel in Queenstown at around 5ish. Once we were checked in, we weren’t overly pleased with our room, but it was just for the night, so we knew that we could put up with it. To keep ourselves busy and out of the not-so-nice hostel, we walked to the centre of Queenstown to see what it was like; we knew we would be back within the next week to see to it properly, so we wanted to get an idea of what we could do when we returned.

Once we had looked around a few shops, we walked onto the lakefront, where we found some nice bars and restaurants. As we are trying to be good and only spend money on the essentials, we avoided the restaurants, even though I would have loved to have eaten out instead of cooking in the dirty looking hostel. As a compromise, we decided to have a drink in a bar – it kept us out of the hostel for longer, and the bar was a ‘floating bar’, on a boat, so we had a cool view over the lake.

After having a drink in the bar, we made our way back to the hostel for tea. We were having curry with rice, but as the people in Franz Josef ate our rice, by mistake, we didn’t have much left, so Joe went on a hunt for some chips, so that we could mix it up a bit.

After dinner, we cleaned up and decided to get an early night – we had to be up early the next day and we didn’t want to sit around in the hostel, as we didn’t feel comfortable.

The next morning, the alarm went off at 6am. I was definitely ready for it to go off as the night consisted of people coming in and out, people turning the light on and off and people making lots of noise, so it wasn’t a good night’s sleep. We got up, packed and ready to leave for our bus to Te Anau at 7. We were a little early to the bus stop, but it was cleaner and fresher than the hostel, so I didn’t care.

When the bus arrived to take us to Te Anau, it was a tour bus to Milford Sound, which we just got off part way through. Whilst we were on the bus, I was glad that we had booked to have a break in Te Anau and booked our trip to Milford Sound separately, because that trip left Queenstown at 7 and wouldn’t actually arrive in Milford Sounds until 1pm – it was a long journey for them.

We arrived in Te Anau just before 9.30 and had a short walk to our hostel. It had just started raining, so I was glad that we didn’t have far to go. When we got to the hostel, it was too early to check in, so we put our bags in storage and made ourselves some breakfast.

Once we had eaten and had sorted ourselves out for the morning, we went for a walk in Te Anau. We walked to the lake, which is the second largest lake in New Zealand (and the largest in the South Island). Walking through Te Anau, we entered the Fiordland National Park. We wandered through the national park for a little bit and came to a bird sanctuary. The sanctuary was to help native birds which wouldn’t survive in the wild due to injury or other issues.

We had a walk around the sanctuary, seeing some very rare birds. The Tekapo is a native bird that was believed to be extinct, until a man from Dunedin spotted one in the mountains. The eggs of the Tekapo bird are now collected from the mountains and incubated until they hatch. Once the bird has hatched, it is looked after in the sanctuary until it is an adult, when it is then released back into the wild. As it is a flightless bird, it had very little chance of survival against predators, so that it why they are cared for until they are adults. In the enclosure, in the sanctuary, there was a baby Tekapo, but we couldn’t see it and from what we could tell, the two adult birds (who weren’t well enough to be released into the wild) were very protective as foster parents.

After having a look around the sanctuary, we walked back to the town. It had started to rain again, so we had to keep sheltering under the trees to keep ourselves dry, as we were clever enough to take our raincoats.

Back in the town, we had a look around some of the shops – it was a good way to dodge the rain. Once we had browsed enough, we walked back to the hostel to have some lunch.

After lunch, we stayed inside for a while. The rain was coming down quite heavily and we were fed up of getting soaked, so we decided to have a chilled afternoon. We sat ourselves in the TV room and watched some films, that another guy had put on, so we had no idea what they actually were.

After a couple of films, the weather had cleared slightly, so we decided to go out for a walk. On the park next to the hostel, there was a Christmas parade happening, so we stopped for a little while to see what was going on. I felt sorry for them really, as they had probably been planning it for ages and the weather had been beautiful for weeks before the weekend that they had organised it for. They had inflatables and water activities and all sorts going on, but there just weren’t many people. We stayed and listened to a few songs and tried to get ourselves into the Christmas spirit – the rain was making us feel much more homely, as it wasn’t so hot.

When we got back to the hostel, after the parade, we decided to play a board game to pass some time. We chose to play scrabble as it one of the little choices and Joe had never played it before, so I had a slight advantage, although it’s easy to learn. We had treated ourselves to some M&Ms and Skittles from the shop to keep us going during the game. After making some great words, I was the winner by eighty points: Joe wasn’t happy about that.

As he didn’t want a rematch, we had some chill time before tea. For dinner, we had pasta and garlic bread. The weather had cleared up nicely and the sun was out after our game, so we were able to eat tea outside, which was nice. After tea, we had a quick FaceTime with home to see the snow, which was very exciting.

We had another relaxed evening, before going to bed, ready for an early start the next day. As we were the last to arrive in the eight bed dorm, we had to have the last two beds were two top bunks, which was very strange for us to not be in the same bunk – I never realised how annoying other people are: every time the guy in the bed below me, moved, the whole bed shook.

The next morning, someone’s alarm went off at 6, and it rang and rang while she rummaged in her bag to try and find it. We didn’t have to be up quite that early, but once I was awake, I struggled to get back to sleep so I just lay there until 6.45 when our alarm went off. We got up and ready and went down to get some breakfast, but when we got down there, we realised we didn’t have any breakfast left, which was disappointing, so we just had a drink instead. It was also slightly annoying to see the woman, whose alarm went off at 6, just lounging around in the dining area – she clearly didn’t need to be up so early.

Just after 7.45, we went to stand at the front of the hostel, to wait to be collected for our trip to Milford Sound. We stood under the shelter, because unfortunately it was raining again which wasn’t going to be good for the day we had planned ahead of us. The driver arrived just before 8 and we got on the ‘VIP’ bus to Milford Sound.

The driver was a lovely man who chatted to us the whole way, telling us all about the national park as we drove through it. On the way to Milford Sound, we stopped off in a couple of places, but the rain was so heavy, it was miserable. We got out and had a look anyway, as we had our rain coats on, so we managed to get some pictures of the sights, even if the clouds covered a good portion of the views. One of the stops, was the Mirror Lake, which is apparently beautiful and reflective on a calm day, unfortunately, it wasn’t calm when we were there, so we didn’t get much of a reflection. We didn’t have too many stops, as we were on a tight schedule on the way there, as some people were booked onto the 10.30 tour, so we needed to be there for then.

We arrived in Milford Sound at 10.20 and we had about half an hour to wait until it was time to board our boat for our cruise. When we boarded our boat, we were served lunch straight away; this was a little weird for us as it wasn’t even 11 o’clock yet, and it was far too early to eat lunch, but we did anyway.

While we were eating lunch, the cruise around Milford Sound began. We could see some sights out of the windows, but once we had finished, we went onto the top deck, to get better views. The weather was still pretty miserable, so the views were slightly clouded, but we could imagine how beautiful it would be on a clear day. We took some photos on the top deck, before moving back inside. We sat by the windows, with a glass cover over our heads, so we could see above us too.

We drove into some waterfalls, which again would have bee pretty cool if it was a nice, sunny day. We still enjoyed the views from the inside though. There were lots of little waterfalls falling from the cliffs, as we drove around, which we were told was different to the previous few days, as they hadn’t had rain for a few weeks prior to our visit – just our luck.

As we left Milford Sound, which is actually a fiord, not a sound, we entered the Tasman Sea. On the edge of the sea, between the sea and Milford Sound, were a pod of dolphins. It was so good to see and is something which apparently doesn’t happen every day, so I guess we were lucky in that aspect. They swam around us for a bit and even did some jumps for us, but they weren’t the type of dolphins that interact with boats, so we had to stay away from them and give them their room.

On our way back through Milford Sound, we drove under another waterfall and saw some seals sat on the rocks. It was a shame that the weather was so miserable, as I would have loved to have seen it all from the top deck and enjoyed the views, but we didn’t even get to see the mountain peaks because of the clouds.

We arrived back into the port at Milford Sound at 12.40, which was about the same time as the other boat, so once everyone was back on the bus, we made our way back to Te Anau. We seemed to have organised it pretty well, as we were leaving, just as hundred of people were arriving on coaches that had come from Queenstown, so we were lucky to have a relatively quiet boat.

On our way back to Te Anau, we had lots more stops, as the timing was much more flexible, and the weather had cleared up quite a bit. We had a look at the Tutoko River and crossed over its footbridge.

We had a short fifteen minute walk up to see the Chasm, which was very fascinating, as the structure of it was very unique.

Some of the stops that we had, had beautiful views of the mountains around us, and as the clouds had lifted, we could see some peaks, but not of the mountains in Milford Sound.

Just before our final stop, we had a stop in a field full of lupine flowers, which were beautiful, but not around all year round. The lupine flower only actually flowers for six to eight weeks, but as different flowers are at different stages, it creates the varying shades of colour. In between stops, we had some naps, before arriving back in Te Anau at around 4pm.

When we got back, we had to do a quick shop for some tea, as we had run out of food, but we didn’t eat straight away, as it was too early. We had a chill in the gardens, as it was lovely and sunny, so we made the most of it. We had a scrabble rematch, which I won, once again, although Joe did close the score gap to about fifty.

For tea, we had omelette and chips, which didn’t go as well as planned, but it was still edible, so it was okay. After tea, we packed our bags, ready to leave the next day, before chilling out and watching a film in the TV room with some other travellers. After the film, we went up to bed, as Joe wanted an early start the next morning for the football.

At 5am, Joe’s alarm went off – I’m sure he was popular in the room – so that he could get up for the derby match. After his alarm went off, I rolled over and went back to sleep – I didn’t even hear him leave the room. I woke up at 7, just before the end of the game, to the news that United were losing, but I had made him promise that he wouldn’t be grumpy if they did lose, so I was okay.

After my alarm, I got up and ready and met Joe downstairs with my bags, ready for the bus. As the match had finished by the time I was down, Joe had made breakfast, which was a nice treat. After we had eaten our toast and washed up, we left for the bus stop. As soon as we stepped out of the hostel, the rain started to come down, of course, but we didn’t have to walk very far. We got to the bus stop, just before our 8am bus to Invercargill.

Te Anau was originally a stop for us so that we could go to Milford Sound, as it was closer than Queenstown and most tours only go from Queenstown or Te Anau. Despite the most miserable weather we have had in a while, which was a shame for our Milford Sound trip, I was glad that we decided to stop in Te Anau, as it broke up the journey and it was a pretty (although quiet) town. The rain gave us a chance to slow down a little and chill out, even though we did still have early starts, we just hope the weather picks up a bit for the rest of the trip, as we prefer the sunshine much more!

To travel is to live, Katie x