En Route to Te Anau
From Cromwell we drove around
Queenstown and down to Te Anau, nearly wrecking the car several times as both
of us tried to take in the unbelievable landscape all along the way. We tried to capture some of it in
photographs, especially the thin cloud layer halfway up the mountainsides
across the incredibly blue lakes; but it was impossible. Our B&B hosts for two nights had arranged
a little guided hike along the nearby lake so we spent three hours or so
walking through a magnificent forest, stopping at lakeside from time to time to
look at the lakeside beaches and to watch the people who had escaped from the
institute water skiing and swimming in the subfreezing water. Actually, the weather here is warmer than up
north in the Bay of Islands, and short sleeves are the order of the day.
Lake at Te Anau
In the evening our hosts joined us
for a fun and delicious dinner at their favorite local restaurant. We ate local fish, lamb, vegetables of all
kinds, and dishes we didn’t recognize.
We ate until we thought we could not possibly hold another crumb. But then the server brought out the dessert
menu.
Dessert menu
at Red Cliff House Restaurant in Te Anau
One member of the group of
four--egged on by the other three, it must be said—enjoyed two new flavors,
since the homemade ice cream choice included three flavors. The banana scoop included little bits of
banana, and was reported to be the best banana this person had ever
tasted. He raved about the beetroot,
cranberry, and chocolate scoop, and was simply apoplectic over the lemon curd
and coconut.
Next morning, it was off early on a
guided bus-and-boat tour to the northwest of town. We did the tour because neither of us wanted
to drive the 120 kilometers to Milford Sound, said to be one of the most
beautiful drives on Earth. We can
honestly report that we have no issue with that claim. Past miles and miles of mountainous
countryside with raging rivers and high waterfalls we went on the 22-passenger
bus, stopping from time to time to try to memorialize the trip with the
camera. We finally arrived at a dock
where we boarded a small ship to tour the area that TripAdvisor has declared
the top tourist destination on the planet.
Roadside view en route to Milford Sound
Milford Sound, like the other 13
sounds on the southwest coast of the South Island, is not a sound at all. As everyone knows, sounds are created by the
action of rivers. Milford was created
over several ice ages by glaciers, which makes if a fiord. At the time the fourteen “sounds” were named,
no one realized how they had been created, and once they found out, were too
stubborn to change. Milford also has the
distinction of having been missed by Captain Cook—not once, but twice. Cook had a policy of sailing at least 4 miles
off the coasts, to help prevent running aground, and this fiord is impossible
to detect from that distance because its entrance is almost parallel to the
coast. It was discovered only by
accident by a captain in a terrible storm who was running close in to try to
find shelter. He thought he saw a small
inlet, but upon entering found this most magnificent fiord.
As we’ve done before, we will make
no effort do describe the 4,000 foot sheer mountainsides, the water, the
waterfalls, or the majesty of the place.
This fiord would only be insulted by the pathetic effort.
Entering Milford from the Tasman Sea
Waterfall in Milford Sound
Inside Milford Sound
An interesting part of the tour was
a visit to an underwater observation center, where we could see the aquatic
life from about 50 feet under the surface.
There were lots of strange and interesting fish down there. We are awed beyond description.
Strange fish in Milford's waters
Charlie & Tricia
©2013
Very spectacular
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