Invercargill is a small, quiet city right at the south end of the South Island. We stayed for 3 nights in this little place, spending time in Bluff (the most southerly town on the planet), looking round the museum and gardens and generally just chilling using the library to plan the next leg of the trip.
Our next point of call was the little town of Te Anau (the gateway to Fjordland). Fjordland is full on, standing ovation, jaw droppingly stunning. Massive deep blue lakes, edged by shear 1000m plus snow capped peaks. On a sunny day there is nowhere that I have been that is more impressive. Unfortunately for us, we only enjoyed one day of sunshine! The weather gods were not smiling on us for the next 4 days with torrential rain, fog and super low cloud levels really spoiling the experience.
On the off chance that the weather wouldn't be as bad at Milford Sound we set off to take a cruise around the jewel of Fjordland. There is one amazing road to Milford that is 120km long, goes through mind blowing alpine scenery and culminates by travelling through a mountain in what looks like a pretty dodgy 5km long road tunnel. After a 2 hour drive we arrived at the ferry port to be told that there was no point going on a cruise as the fog and cloud was too bad and all we would see was 20m of water around the boat!
A quick pie munch later we set off for the long trip back down the road as the weather decided to worsen and snow chased us back to Te Anau!
Travelling around NZ in the winter, the weather can have a dramatic effect on your trip and your perception of the country as a whole. Cold rainy days make you realise just how far from home you are, whereas sunny days make you realise what a special place this country is. It's weird to be this affected by the weather as back home you rarely give the weather a thought unless something exceptional is occurring.
Anyway, after spending 4 days in the rain it was time to move on and we headed for the extreme sports capital of the world, Queenstown.
The first thing that strikes you about this town is how much it resembles Chamonix, only prettier (and with less French people in it). If you have even a slight urge to throw yourselves off something, out of something, down something wet, up something rocky, hang on a rope, slide down a mountain or swing across a gaping chasm then this your place! It seemed a bit rude not to take part so not having done a Bungy jump before Dave sought out the biggest one he could find and we headed off to the Nevis range and a 134m (8 seconds of free fall) cable car bungy. This went well, everyone who took part survived and seemed to enjoy the experience!!
After exploring Queenstown for a couple of days and experiencing the culinary delights if Fergburger (an awesome burger joint with mahoosive burgers) we had a look at Arrowtown a small mining town that had a pretty cool museum and Chinese camp to look at it we had to head up north along the West Coast via the Haast pass. Officially the best road ever!
See you next time!
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