The trip to Milford Sounds was a two stage event, just due to the sheer distance we decided to do the first leg of the journey and stop off at Te Anau to offer some much needed road relief.
The first leg of the journey to Te Anau took about two and a half hours, part of it winding up through The Remarkables lots of stunning scenery, and on the other side straighter roads with gazillions of sheep and some deer dotted around. Unfortunately our eldest's breakfast decided to pay a surprise visit, so he was then relegated to the front prime seat of our people mover carrier beast of a car… guess that’s one method to wangle the best seat in the car!
One thing I've noted is that Grandpa's travel plans heavily revolve around his coffee breaks, so we stopped for a refuelling stop at a little place at Athol (roll on the Spanish pronunciation). A little grocery come coffee come ice-cream shop in the middle of nowhere… which had a surprising number of visitors having a pit stopping there.
Out side we saw a licence plate on a car which made us have a little giggle… one to add to our ever growing list of personal licence plates.
Coffee downed and Grandpa happy again, we then pressed on and continued our journey down to Te Anau.
Once we'd checked into our hotel at Te Anau we decided to head on over to the "Bird Sanctuary" and for a late afternoon walk along the Kelper Track. Now... as for the bird sanctuary... I use the work 'sanctuary' in the loosest way as it was blimmin' awful.
These poor sad looking creatures cooped up in small concrete cages with minimal if at all any vegetation, staring out at the green trees beyond the wired cage. In all honesty I was truly shocked that a place like this even existed... and we didn't stick round as the place had doom and gloom vibes about it.
We then embarked on a stroll along the Kelper Track which runs along side the Upper Waiau River. Being quite late in the day it was a fairly hand numbing chilly affair but a beautiful little walk none the less, which lead us through quite a magical green forest full of moss and ferns, which we renamed as the Fern Gully walk.
Now the Kelper Track is a full on 3 day walk, however given that the light was fading and it was getting cooler by the minute (like we would have made 3 days anyway) we made a quick stop at a beautiful lake before heading back for a quick early dinner and bed... ready for our day at Milford Sounds tomorrow.
The first leg of the journey to Te Anau took about two and a half hours, part of it winding up through The Remarkables lots of stunning scenery, and on the other side straighter roads with gazillions of sheep and some deer dotted around. Unfortunately our eldest's breakfast decided to pay a surprise visit, so he was then relegated to the front prime seat of our people mover carrier beast of a car… guess that’s one method to wangle the best seat in the car!
One thing I've noted is that Grandpa's travel plans heavily revolve around his coffee breaks, so we stopped for a refuelling stop at a little place at Athol (roll on the Spanish pronunciation). A little grocery come coffee come ice-cream shop in the middle of nowhere… which had a surprising number of visitors having a pit stopping there.
Coffee downed and Grandpa happy again, we then pressed on and continued our journey down to Te Anau.
Once we'd checked into our hotel at Te Anau we decided to head on over to the "Bird Sanctuary" and for a late afternoon walk along the Kelper Track. Now... as for the bird sanctuary... I use the work 'sanctuary' in the loosest way as it was blimmin' awful.
These poor sad looking creatures cooped up in small concrete cages with minimal if at all any vegetation, staring out at the green trees beyond the wired cage. In all honesty I was truly shocked that a place like this even existed... and we didn't stick round as the place had doom and gloom vibes about it.
We then embarked on a stroll along the Kelper Track which runs along side the Upper Waiau River. Being quite late in the day it was a fairly hand numbing chilly affair but a beautiful little walk none the less, which lead us through quite a magical green forest full of moss and ferns, which we renamed as the Fern Gully walk.
Now the Kelper Track is a full on 3 day walk, however given that the light was fading and it was getting cooler by the minute (like we would have made 3 days anyway) we made a quick stop at a beautiful lake before heading back for a quick early dinner and bed... ready for our day at Milford Sounds tomorrow.
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