Marc & Nora ROUND THE WORLD 2005/2006 - Join us!

Marc writes>

Back home in England before we made this trip whenever I thought of New Zealand the images that came to my mind first were those of mountains and Fiords.

After a few hours drive from Invercargill we arrived at Te Anau which is really the gateway to the Milford sound, one of the most accesable and beautiful of the sounds (in fact it is a fiord and not a sound but I won`t get picky!). Te anau is quite a nice little place in itself as it sits on the beautiful Lake Te Anau but we were just here to book ourselves onto a cruise on the Milford Sound for the next day. The drive from Te Anau to Milford Sound is beautiful as you pass through valleys, over mountains and through tunnels (Homer Tunnel, 1270m long, was hand dug in the 1930`s to 1950`s). We stayed over night in one of the department of conservation campgrounds (of which there are many olong this route) about half way between Te Anau and Milford Sound and awoke to find a very eerie looking layer of mist about 20m thick creeping along the valley floor. Amazing sight.

The cruise on the milford sound itself is beautiful. The place is just so peaceful and tranquil despite being full of tourist boats. You are towered over by imposing mountains and sprayed by the many waterfalls. You can even see an enourmous crack running deep through one of the mountains which is the result of an earthquake as the fiord runs across one of the many fault lines in this region! The cruise took us out of the fiord mouth and briefly out into the ocean before turning around and heading back into the fiord. Apparently Captain Cook missed the entrance to this fiord when he was charting the NZ coastline (Fool!). Definitely a place to recommend if you are visiting NZ. You can also take a Kayak trip here too which looked really nice.

So with the cruise over our next destination was Queenstown.