Thursday 29th November – Milford Sound & Fjordland National Park

Luckily the day dawned more brightly and without any bugs which gave us an opportunity to enjoy the view of Lake Te Anau from our campsite that we’d missed last night:

Then it was back on the road into Fjordland National Park to see as many features as possible on the way in – including the Mirror lakes, lupins, waterfalls and snow-capped mountains.  

Some mountains and lupins for you....

 

Mirror lake selfie

That'd be the mirror lakes

Nearing Milford Sound, we were at the front of the queue going through the Homer tunnel. I was getting annoyed with a driver right up behind me, so I pulled over in the first lay-by after we exited the tunnel. A wise choice it turned out. As soon as we’d stopped an inquisitive Kea spotted us and made a bee-line towards us across the road. I could barely watch, worried that by us stopping we were going to get an endangered bird run over. Thankfully not, we just enjoyed the kea getting up close and personal, it even made an attempt to hop up onto the camper’s window at one point.  

A beautiful friendly Kea

 

Our approach to the harbour at Milford Sound

Despite all our stopping, we still made it to the cruise terminal in plenty of time for our Encounter Nature tour.   

 

We had booked this company on purpose as they promised the focus of the cruise would be on the wildlife and they didn’t disappoint.  Whilst all the other tour boats whisked past us to the end of the sound just to turn around again, our guides took us in close to the shore to get a glimpse of one of the rarest penguins in the world that just happened to be roosting at the moment – Fjordland crested penguins.

And we hung around to watch them for as long as we were able before heading back past the beautiful scenery spotting seals and birds as we went. I tried hard not to take as many photographs as I did the first time I visited, but that’s a tough ask when you’re somewhere as stunning as Milford sound! 

Sleepy seals

We were steared right underneath one of the waterfalls

Massive cruise liner in the Sound for scale

Mitre Peak is the highest one in this photograph

As we’d done a lot of stopping off on the way in, the drive back was less eventful, apart from the beautiful rainbows across the landscape.  

The aim was to make good ground towards Queenstown that evening to leave only a short drive for the next day.  I did some research whilst in the passenger seat and found a unique campsite with some of the best reviews I’d ever read. It was pretty much in the middle of nowhere but with the added appeal that there were lots of animals and visitors were encouraged to feed and pet them. We got there just before sunset, so we’ll leave some time for that in the morning.