Te Anau and Milford Sound

After two days in Queenstown we headed down to Te Anau, a small and very quiet town that was quite a nice change after the bustle of Queenstown. Once more the journey was lovely with ever-changing scenery that makes every journey in this country so pleasant.

The main reason for going to Te Anau was to visit Milford Sound but since we had an afternoon to spare we walked around Lake Te Anau to the start of the Routeburn track — although alas we didn’t have the 4/5 days needed to complete the track itself! There was also a very cool bird sanctuary on the lakeshore so we saw (and heard!) a number of native New Zealand birds.

Unfortunately the next day started very cloudy so the views on the road down to Milford Sound were not as good as they might have been, but the cloud and mist gave the Sound (technically a fiord) itself an eerily beautiful appearance during our 2 hour cruise, and the rain meant the many waterfalls were all the more impressive. The sun also came out in the afternoon so we got the best of both worlds, seeing the landscape shrouded in mysterious cloud and we got to see most of the scenery too!