We met up with the Kiwi bus wn route and rejoined them. I am so glad I did the Deep South but also happy to be back in the big bus!
We stopped off in Te Anau for a break and it was another gorgeous lakeside town, just like Wanaka or a quiet Queenstown.
After Te Anau we joined the Milford highway which was voted by the National Geographic as one of the top ten drives in the world, and I completely agree. It was stunning scenery everywhere you looked. The area is in the Fjordland National Park and is so unspoilt by humans. The road was often tunneled by trees which is my favourite type of road! There were massive mountains and large open flat area.
We made several stops along the road. One of which was at Mirror Lakes. These are obviously what they say they are. The mirror effect is caused by the stagnating water in them. Nice! But beautiful!
Next we stopped at a another picturesque spot where we could fill up our water bottles with the fresh mountain water. It was chilled tasty water!
It rain on average 2 out of 3 days in the fjord lands so we were so lucky to have a glorious cloudless day! It had rained the day before so there were still a few waterfalls around. It was all glacial madein the last ice age and you can see the enormous u shaped basins where the glaciers once were. The mountains are so shear and imposing. A very impressive landscape.
We made our assent up a large mountain and then went through a very long tunnel to get to the other side before making the long descent down and down to the Sound. A sound is a channel carved our by water to the sea, which is not what Milford Sound is. This was carved out by a glacier so is a fjord.
We got on our boat and started out cruise. Everywhere you looked it was beautiful. The shear fjord edges and the turquoise waters with glacial basins and waterfalls dotted around. I took so many pictures! We sailed out to the Tasman Sea and then turned around.
We then made the long journey to Queenstown. Highlight was definitly stopping in Te Anau again and going to Miles Better Pies and having the best pie of my life! NZ always likes to claim that they invented the pie, clearly wrong, but pies are probably their national dish and this one was hands down the best pie ever. I had a lamb and mint one and it was fantastic. So much meat and absolutely delicious!
As most of the people I've been traveling with were leaving on the bus the next day we had to have a night out to celebrate the ending of travelling together. Another night stating out on the beach, then getting moved on my the police and then going dancing. Great night, saw the table if doom that I fell off the last time and it brought back bad memories!
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