Imagine a big square, 50 km each side. Queenstown is near the top right corner, Te Anau is in the bottom left corner. Glenorchy and Milford Sound are very close in the top left corner but separated by a few mountains. There are plans to dig a tunnel or run a monorail to shorten the trip. Strongly opposed by the locals. Since we couldn't wait, we took the long way around to Milford Sound, overnighting in Te Anau.
Te Anau is a very small place, far removed from touristy Queenstown. It's a stepping off point for a few of NZ's popular great walks, the most well known is Milford Track (4 days). It's a much shorter trip from here to Milford Sound than Queenstown.
A helicopter pilot spent 10 years filming the Milford Sound and the surrounding area. (Part of that time he was accompanied by the site scout for Lord of the Rings) Finding no place to show his movie, he built his own theatre called Fiordland which holds 55 viewers in the lap of luxury. The movie is quite amazing (hold onto your seats). We have the DVD but we might need to buy a bigger TV.
We took a small bus tour to Milford Sound.
We could have drove ourselves but the scenery was pretty distracting.
Plus there's a small single lane (of course) tunnel over a km long.
In the Sound there are waterfalls everywhere
And massive shear cliffs
After a sleepy ride home (another good reason to take the bus): The circus is in town!
Everybody is excited
More tramping
We take in a piece of the Kepler Trail
Woo-Hoo
We ran into some fellow Canucks.
This is an overnight hut on the trail. Cozy.
No comments:
Post a Comment