To Milford Sound the long way round

Based on the recommendation of our dinner companions at the castle, we decided to take the scenic route around the southeastern coast. We stopped for lunch in Balclutha and then followed the Scenic Highway around to the Purakaunui Falls. We'd had some showers along the way, but the rain stopped just in time for us to walk down through the dripping woods to the really gorgeous waterfall. We continued on through farmland and asking the coast to the stunningly perfect Tautuku Bay and faxed out over the Southern Ocean toward Antarctica.

From there we buzzed through Invercargill and arrived about six in Te Anau, the gateway to the fjords...only to learn that the road to Milford Sound had been closed for two days due to avalanche risk. We woke the next morning to another grey, rainy day with the road still closed, but based on the excellent advice if our host at Radford's Motel we got breakfast and supplies for lunch and set out along the road.

We stopped to look out over Lake Te Anau and at the well-named Mirror Lakes. At Knob's Flat the sign said the road was still closed ahead, so we went for a walk through the extraordinarily mossy beech woods around Lake Gunn before making our way up to the gate at Hollyford. There were dozens of cars and busses there and the word was that the bomb team were almost done and the plows would be heading out soon. So we waited another hour and just after 1pm they began letting us through.

The views along the way we're just stunning: glorious mountains rising from alpine valleys to peaks shining with newly fallen snow. There were waterfalls down every rock face and huge erratics dotting the plains.

Finally we reached the tunnel, a tiny hole at the bottom of a gigantic mountainside. Inside it was low and dark, one lane descending steadily through the mountain. And then we emerged into glorious sunshine and descended once more to sea level and the amazing beauty of the Milford Sound.

We had been booked on the 9:25am boat, with a stop at the underwater Discovery Center. The agent has told us when we called that morning that if we made it through they would put us on the 1:30 boat, but that wouldn't include the center. As we arrived just after 1:30 we were crossing our fingers, but they had held the boat for the first batch through and we departed at 2:05. They even arranged for those of us with tickets for the Discovery Center to be dropped off there and picked up by a later boat, the last one of a short day. So in the end we got everything we'd hoped to do!

The ride out through the fjord was gorgeous at every moment. The mountains coming right down to the water, the waterfalls gushing through the hanging valleys and splashing rainbows around us, dolphins playing near the boat, seals sunning themselves on a favorite rock...it really is an incredible place.

The Discovery Center is very cool, an observation deck floating ten meters below the surface next to the rock face of Harrison Cove. There are smaller platforms all around the deck that serve as gardens for communities of deep-sea organisms that are tricked by the extreme cold and darkness of the fjord into living much higher than they do anywhere else in the world.

After our stop there it was a quick ride back to the pier and then we were back in our car and heading uphill once again. At the tunnel we had a five minute wait for our side's turn. There were several kea birds working the line, approaching each car and testing our adherence to the "Please don't feed the keas" signs. Then the light turned green and we headed back up.

I let Jason drive from Knob's Flat back to Te Anau, where we stopped for pizza and gas, and then we set out in the dark for the 2.5 hour drive to Queenstown. The weirdest thing, as we approached town and could see those lights below, was to look up in the pitch dark of a cloudy night and see clusters of bright white lights seeming to hang in midair. Jason figured out that it was the ski areas, but they looked like strangely close constellations in the night sky.

We pulled in at Brown's Boutique Hotel just before 10pm and we're very glad to climb into our beds after a long, beautiful day.

Queenstown Adventures

Queenstown bills itself as the adventure capital of NZ. There is skiing and rafting and jet boats and bungy jumping and more. There town itself is a fast-growing tourist center clinging to the slopes of mountains around a long, narrow, deep, and very cold glacial lake.

After a lovely breakfast here at our hotel we wandered down into the center of town. And by "down" I mean down a fairly steep walkway to the street, down a somewhat gentler hill for a block, and then down five flights of steps. We wandered along the lakeshore and then out around the peninsula of public gardens jutting out into the lake and offering more amazing views. We shopped a bit, had lunch, then headed back up the hill to the SkyLine Gondola that would take us up to the top of Bob's Peak, so we could jump off it.

We've jumped off the Sky Tower on what Jason a ptly describes as a vertical zipline. And we've taken a SkySwing off the edge of a mountain in Rotorua. So how could we come to the home of bungy jumping and not give it a try? Turns out that it's the best of them all! Stepping off the ledge is terrifying, but freefalling through the air, hundreds of feet above the town, is exhilarating and heart-opening and thrilling. Alice loved it--she was doing balletic tricks at the end of the rope. I hope I get to do it again one day!

After that we all just wanted to chill, so we came back to the hotel for a bit before heading out again for dinner at Roaring Meg's. Named for a renowned brothel-keeper, it is now famous for lamb. We shared a plate of meats and cheeses and then Alice and I both had their famous lamb confit, served with three roasted ribs, gratin potatoes and roasted veggies. Jason had the wild venison with roasted pears. For dessert Alice had the apple & berry crumble, Jason the chocolate mousse, and I went with the Eton mess--the best version I've ever had. Nothing I ate was less than delicious and I was very happy. While Jason and I had lattes after dinner, Alice finally got to try a "fluffy," a cupful of milk foam with cocoa sprinkled on top. She's hoping they'll catch on in the States.

I almost forgot...on the way to dinner we stopped back at Walk-In Wardrobe, a second-hand shop where Alice had earlier tried on a gorgeous leather jacket that she couldn't further. It was still there and she decided to buy it with her own money. It looks amazing on her, fits with room to grow, and was only $40. She is over the moon about it and never wants to take it off.

This morning we decided we needed some downtime, so after breakfast we spent an hour reading and relaxing at the hotel. Eventually we wandered back down to the main shopping streets and found lunch at the Pier Restaurant, where Alice bravely ordered the mussels for the first time on her own.

Nomad Safaris picked us up at 1:30 and our guide, Ilya, took us and another party of three out to see more filming locations from The Lord of the Rings. We drove West along the lake stopping at various lookouts as he told us stories about what was filmed where. We visited the place where Sam stewed the coneys and the armies of Sauron marched through with oliphaunts. We stopped at the field where most of the views of Isengard were filmed. We drove along the Dead Marshes and stopped for tea in Lothlorien and everywhere we went the mountains towered in the background in every side. It was epic!

Back in town I decided that I wanted better Japanese food than we got in Dunedin and online reviews led us to Tanoshi. That was marvelous--fabulously rich miso soup, the best gyoza, and wonderful chicken tempura were the highlights, but everything we had was tasty.

Ferg is a food empire here in Queenstown. The line for Fergburgers snakes down the block at all hours, the one for Mrs Ferg's Bakery is equally long in the morning, and there's also a gelateria--thankfully the line there is much shorter. I had a tiny serving of mascarpone fig almond that was the perfect ending to the day.

Tomorrow we head north again to the west coast. Cross your fingers that the weather is good enough for us to fly up to the glaciers!