Milford Sound and Fiordland

So here we continue with our story about Angela and David fighting against New Zealand's worst spring ever! From Queenstown we continued our road further South and ended up in Te Anau and on the road to famous Milford Sound. This sound is part of the forteen sounds formed by glaciers very, very long ago and which are part of the Fiordland National Park. Every tourist who comes to New Zealand usually has to come to Milford and go on a boat cruise. Thus, we got up really early to be on the first boat when there are the least tourists and out we went, into the cloudy and grey sound.

However, the landscape was just fabulous! Steep rough cliffs dropping off into the water, some like vertical walls, dense green vegetation in other places, hundreds of waterfalls (there are only four permanent waterfalls in Milford Sound, all others just spring up and die again with the rain), snow-coverd mountain peaks whenever the clouds allow a view of them, penguins playing in the water and on the rocky shores, seals bathing in the... well, I guess in the rain! It was truly a miraculous place, something I have never seen before and something I won't forget. We enjoyed every second of it and when finally, the sun broke through the clouds (picture in David's text) we were completely enraptured!

Of course, we couldn't let the chance of a hike in good weather go by and so, after the boat cruise, we decided that we would do a part of the first-day Routeburn track and hike up to a place called Key Summit. What can I tell you?! This short three hour hike gave us an impression of what the region here is truly like - a litte paradise on earth and we really, really enjoyed every second of it (of course it also gave us an impression of what we were missing out on because of this prolonged winter...). But we were not thinking of that - we were just grateful to be able to see such a place in reality, to actually be there and to be ravished by it.

We also took a look from above at the destination of our hike planned for the next day, a beautiful mirror lake situated inbetween the most majestic mountains. However, the next morning greeted us with the, by now, well-know plop, plop on our tent and our first thought was: oh no, not again! Nevertheless, we got up, packed our tent and wanted have a look at what the weather was like a little further up in the mountains where our hike was to start. This was a particularly good idea because after about three minutes in the car we were no longer whipping off rain with our windsheeld whipers, it was snow. Yeah, you may believe me (and you'll see it on the picture) it was actually snowing. But that time I knew why I had been so cold all night long and we very quickly decided that this was maybe not the right weather to go hiking. Our conclusion was to head back to Te Anau and try our luck there.

Result: we got stuck in hail. Another nice experience and at this point I would like to tell Gerrit and Enric that you have chosen a very, very good tent: it survives in the fiercest storms and rain, snow and hail and the only problem you might encounter is frozen inhabitants! Oh, and I would also like to thank Bina for the wonderful idea of giving me my red Canada-sweater because it is saving my life over here!!! Other than that we decided that we had definitely had enough and that is was time to move further South (yes, we keep having that idea in mind that it might get warmer and nicer when heading South, I guess that is because we are used to living in the Northern hemisphere). So the next time you'll here from us, you'll get some news from Lake Manapouri and the Southern Scenic Route along the South coast of New Zealand's South Island.