Te Anau / Milford Sound

After a stopover in Te Anau, where I'm so exhausted I mainly sleep on the very comfy bed at Rosies Homestay (although I did visit the bird wildlife centre, which the DOC manage - there are keas and parakeets and other birds, in a clearing on the site of the lovely lake, which was interesting. The keas were my favourite, they're large, colorful and curious birds), I get the bus onward to Milford Sound.

Now, this is an 'attraction' (well, it's natural, so maybe 'attraction' isn't quite the right word - it's not Disneyland! - but it's still a major, massive tourist draw, for both tramping on the Milford Track, and for the natural beauty of the area), which is so hyped up that I was half-expecting to be disappointed - South Island so far has been so beautiful and magnificent that I wasn't expecting to be as bowled-over as I was. Even the drive there was stunning - passing by roaring river, waterfalls, suspended glaciers high on the mountain tops; crystal-clear mountain-filtered streams; the road winding between towering walls of black-grey rock; even the massive pile of last-year's avalanche snow near the tunnel that took you through one of the moutains, not yet melted.

And the Sounds themselves are gorgeous, stunning, and completely humbling - the size of the moutains (the towering Mitre Peak taking the prize), the blueness of the water against the deep green on the plants, the peacefulness of being out in the water (even on our quite large boat - we were dwarfed by the surroundings). It's just stunning - indescribably so. Postcards and pictures can convey something of it, but, like so much in NZ, it simply doesn't 'fit' into a photograph.
I'm well aware that this sounds quite irritatingly smug, but: it's just one of those things you have to see for yourself.

Oh - and we saw seals there! I'm still excited by seeing them, despite them being all over the place here; probably because NZ is severly lacking in mammals (well, ones that Kiwis actually like anyway - possums, stoats, weasels and rats being loathed, for good reason).

p.s. I'm having real trouble uploading photos on here and flickr - it's taking me ages and i have loads, and the comps are slow (think the photos are too big but resizing them is difficult etc. etc!!!). I've got them all backed-up and may post a cd home at some point... until then there won't be many up here :-p sorry!

written by

LizIsHere on March 9, 2010 from Milford Sound, New Zealand

from the travel blog: New Zealand & Australia 2010

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