Term Break - Fourth Stop Te Anau and Milford Sound

We arrived late in Te Anau after an afternoon ferry ride to the mainland and a quick stop back in Invercargill for dinner and Mass, so we didn’t get to see much of the area until the next day. In the morning we were astounded to find ourselves next to NZ’s second largest lake, with the same name as the town. Although a bit rushed by securing breakfast and getting moving to Milford Sound for our nature cruise, we were able to enjoy a long view of the lake as we drove along its nearly 53 kilometre shore on the way to Milford.

Mark and I had made a very quick trip to Milford Sound without the children in 2001, but we had never driven to the Sound. It was an amazing drive through dense forests in glacial valleys. Although reminiscent of Yosemite National Park, these valleys were on a much grander scale. We stopped several times to gaze at marvellous roaring rivers and waterfalls. At what would appear to be the end of the road, man has constructed a 1207 metre long tunnel. On the other end is the ancient starting point of the glacier that carved Milford Sound (or Fiord, as it should more correctly be called). The guidebooks describe it as “a spectacular, high-walled, ice-carved amphitheatre” and I can’t imagine saying it any better. [Mark’s attempt: imagine coming out of a tunnel into the bottom of the end of a U-shaped valley, with the valley about 600 meters wide and with near-vertical 600-meter high walls on three sides of you.]

Milford Sound is absolutely stunning, amazing, fantastic (I could go on and on). I don’t believe any description or photograph could do the area complete justice. You’ll all have to plan to come see it for yourselves! We were glad that we’d booked the tour that took us all the way out into the Tasman Sea for an unbelievable view back into the Sound. You could almost imagine being on the sailing vessel of an early explorer and seeing this area for the first time.

The kids were anxious to see glowworms, so Mark took them for a viewing of them across Lake Te Anau in the morning. I’d already seen the bugs that light up when they digest their food, but they all thought it was pretty neat. Kids! [Geography factoid by Mark: the glowworms are a nice illustration of natural Thiessen polygons, since each worm “stakes out” a territory that it can reach from its base.]

By the way, I don’t think that I’ve mentioned that we’ve been knitting up a storm on this trip. Ever since the purchase of the real wool on the Otago Peninsula and the purchase of some knitting needles in Invercargill, *all* the kids have been occupying themselves in the back of the van with various knitting projects. They’re quite good at it, too!