After the Shotover Canyon jet boat ride we carried on towards Milford Sound. More beautiful scenery on the trip up around Lake Wakatipu. We stopped for lunch at the Kingfton Flyer Cafe which is at the station for the historic Kingston Flyer steam train. The train chugged off just as we got into the car park for the cafe, quite an evocative sight (and sound). The cafe itself was one of those twilight zone-style places that I am told you get in small stopover towns in Australia. No one in it (except for the owner) and looking like something out of the fifties, with a battered old pool table and a knackered old telly in the corner playing dodgy Australian day-time TV (which had rugby jocks teaching us how to make great half time snacks). We both had the bacon and egg burger (which had just about everything out of the fridge - including beetroot, yuk) and then moved on along to Te Anau.
We were originally going to nightstop in Te Anau, as we were due to meet the tour party for Milford Sound here. However as we arrived a bit ahead of schedule (after a nail biting search for a petrol station), we decided to carry on to Milford Sound. The drive from Te Anau to Milford Sound is reputed to have some of the best scenery in New Zealand. The first 50k's or so are very nice, but we were starting to doubt its reputation. As soon as you start to climb, however, it all becomes clear. It really is awesome especially if you are lucky enough to have clear weather as we did. Towards the end of the drive you end up going through a scary tunnel, it's really narrow, quite long and looks like it has recently been hewn out of the rock (the walls are rocky) and goes downhill fairly steeply. Add to this the fact that it was virtually unlit and you can imagine that Karen's claustrophobia kicked in about halfway through.
Anyway, shortly after this we arrived at Milford Sound Lodge, just about the only place to stay at Milford Sound. It was pretty chaotic trying to work out which pitch was ours as a bunch of camper vans turned up at the same time and the site is not exactly organised, but we got there in the end albeit with some prat parked alongside us with about 6 inches to spare.
We had a pretty patchy night's sleep as it was hammering down (very common for Milford - it gets about 8 metres of rain anually) and we got up at about 8:00 to meet the Fiordland Wilderness Experience guides for the sea kayaking trip. We followed the tour bus down to Milford Sound Deep and kitted up. This was a really impressive trip, well organised with good quality gear and a good guide. We had been told that this is the best way to see Milford Sound and I have to agree. It's really peaceful paddling around the water (which was like a mill-pond at the start). The weather got a little worse after a dry-ish start, but once you are in the kayak wearing all of the gear it doesn't matter whether it is raining or not. We saw some fantastic waterfalls, great mountains soaring out of the water and had seals playing around the kayaks. Great.
You can find a short movie here (you'll have to be quick to spot the seal in the top right), which you need Quicktime to view (beware - it's 10mb too).