Day 50 – Invercargill to Milford Sound to Queenstown.

7.30am bus out of Invercargill, last night was probably one of the best nights sleep I’ve ever had so I did not want to get up this morning. Our driver took us to Five Rivers where we met the daily kiwi Milford Sound bus, so we all moved from our bus to theirs and as I got on there were people at the back shouting my name, which is always the best feeling when you’re getting on a bus expecting not to know anyone. Rach, Charli and Laura had a spare seat as if they knew I was coming. Our first stop was in Te Amau at a small café, which is the half waypoint to Milford.

We next stopped at the Mirror Lakes. From here we weren’t far from the tunnel where we had to wait 5 minutes until we were allowed through which gave us plenty of time to run out to take photos and lucky for us it was snowing! Not a lot but it was in the air, which made the whole experience even more exciting.

The whole area is called the Fiordland National Park and it really was beautiful, the best thing I saw all day or even few days. New Zealand is all about the scenery and sometimes I get to the point where it all just looks the same and it’s always around, so you feel less impressed but I do love at least once a day you have that WOW moment.

We had one more stop before arriving in Milford and this was the The Chasm. It was a lovely little walk and there are waterfalls, lakes, rivers and just water in general everywhere here.

Our boat ride through the Milford Sound started at 1.30 and lasted just under 2 hours. It wasn’t as spectacular as they big it up to be, we did get to see some pretty amazing waterfalls and seals but the journey to the boat I enjoyed more than the boat itself. Lunch and refreshments were included in our trip but there wasn’t really enough room for everyone to sit down so it was quite an interesting experience.

There is only one road from Milford Sound to Te Amau so we got to see all the beautiful scenery on the way back too, which was a good thing as the weather was sunny on the way back so the views looked even more amazing than they did before. Four seasons in one day! Just outside Te Amau we witnessed a pretty horrific car crash, which delayed us by about an hour, it was so bad the fire-fighters had to cut the top of the car off and a helicopter came to lift the woman to hospital, not nice!

Eventually arriving back in Queenstown we dropped most of the bus off at Nomads and then we got dropped off around the corner at Base as there was no room to stay in Nomads. I opened the bottom of the bus to find only one piece of luggage left…obviously it wasn’t mine, the bus driver seemed a little confused and said my bag must be outside Nomads and someone took it off by accident. He didn’t really care and just wanted to be on his way so I just quickly dumped my small bag and food bag in base reception and ran over to Nomads. I probably got there a good 15minutes since the bus left and there was my bag in the middle of the pavement… obviously I was pleased it was still there but it was a bit ridiculous that I had to run to pick it up and then walk back to my hostel when it should never have left the bus in the first place. I hope this isn’t the restart of my terrible luck so far this trip!

I was hungry but not that hungry and as we had missed the free dinner at Nomads we decided on the bus to all meet up and go to Fergburger as a few of the girls hadn’t yet had one. Obviously I had to join them but don’t worry, I only had a small kids burger which was just as good, you can’t go to Ferg and not get one, that would be a crime! After dinner we went for a walk around the lake and bought some cheap cookies from a shop that was just about to close. Perfect timing if you ask me.

Day 49 – Dunedin to Invercargill

We left Dunedin at 8.30am and drove along the coast through the Catlins. The Catlins will probably be as far south as I will ever go, unless one day I end up in Antarctica but that’s unlikely to happen. We stopped at The Point for a hot drink and a toastie before heading a little further along the coast to do the lighthouse and clifftop walk. The clifftop point was SO windy, I couldn’t stay up there for long. At least the walk around to the lighthouse was ok, from there you could see what they call Nugget Point, it did just look like a bunch of golden nugget rocks in the sea. It is also 4,800km to the South Pole. The water was quite clear you could even see a few seals lying around.

We then stopped at another beach (a lot of these don’t have signs or he was babbling on too much I didn’t pay attention to what it was called) where within 30 seconds from the bus we came face to face with a sea-lion. Apparently these kind of lions are the rarest member of seals in the world, they are also the largest native animal in New Zealand. On the beach we saw quite a few more, some were lazing about on the beach whilst others were having a swim, so we had to be careful if and when they decided to come out of the water as they are known to attack because they feel threatened.

We then stopped in a nearby café on the way to Florence Hill for some so called traditional fish and chips, or fush and chups as they pronounce it, they don’t know how to make them like we do though!

Florence Hill was a beautiful lookout and on a really nice day I could see myself swimming in the beautiful blue sea and relaxing on the golden sands, it really did look appealing, unfortunately we didn’t have time or the weather for any of this, so it will carry on being a dream for now.

As you may have guessed today was a day for a lot of stops. I think Google told me you could drive from Dunedin to Invercargill in just under 3 hours and it took us something like 10 hours! I guess we took the coastal route and there may have been a different way but who knows! Next stop was in Lake Wilkie, here we went on a short boardwalk around part of the lake and through the forest. We saw some vines hanging from the trees and because of my name our driver told me I should live up to my name and swing on them… it didn’t look that safe so I decided to go with the fact my name isn’t spelt the same as a pretty good excuse not too.

McLean Falls was a slightly longer walk but by far the most impressive of the day. You could hear and smell the fresh water ages before you could see it, it really was refreshing. The falls went on forever, we climbed right to the top and it really was impressive, that’s about the only way I can describe it.

Our next stop was Curio Bay where we stopped for an ice cream; I decided to go for a Chocolate Truffle Magnum (yes dad, be very jealous), whilst eating this I got to enjoy the odd sightings of some Hector Dolphins. We then went over to another part of Curio Bay where penguins are normally spotted. This area is home to around 9 pairs of yellow-eyed penguins and we did manage to spot a couple but without binoculars they were quite hard to see! Today was definitely a wildlife day.

After a long day we arrived in Invercargill around 7.30 meaning most things were now closed, I still took a short walk around before it started to hammer it down. It’s a hard life that rain business; I don’t know how you’re living with it in the UK.