Mum's a Trooper!

   Well, Mum and I were stuck in Queenstown without her luggage. She only has 2 outfits, and not much else. I feel so bad that she’s stuck without anything… especially warm clothes! We were scheduled to leave Queenstown Wednesday morning, but without her luggage, we didn’t want to go far, or else we would just have to drive back to pick it up. We’d spent quite a bit of time at the airport already trying to figure this out, but Wednesday we spent a few hours there getting it sorted out. Mum and the airport people made the decision to send her luggage to Dunedin instead of Queenstown, so that we could pick it up when we arrived there in a couple days. That meant we could keep on going with our plans, but she wouldn’t have anything with her! Way to go Mum for sticking it out with no luggage!

   So, after spending the day (it seemed!) at the airport, we drove to Te Anau, near Fiordland. The drive was not too long, and we didn’t have any mountains to go over. Wahoo! It was an easy drive, and very pretty, as is everything in NZ. We got to Barnyard Backpackers in the late afternoon, and it was such a nice hostel! It was located on a farm with cows, horses, sheep, and deer. We had our own cabin to ourselves, with a spectacular view. However, it was FREEZING! We turned on the little heater in the room as soon as we got there, but it didn’t really do much. The cabins were more built for summer than winter, I think. Barnyard was in between two small towns, Te Anau and Manapouri, so we drove to both to sightsee. Both are situated on lakes, with mountains in the background. So pretty! After our drive, we headed home to cook dinner and go to bed early. We have been so tired and have been going to bed extremely early. Such party animals we are!

The view from our cabin, complete with rainbow.

   Thursday morning we woke up in our freezing cold cabin and decided there was no way we could spend another night there. We made breakfast, checked our emails on the deathly slow dial-up computer in the lodge, and left Barnyard. We drove to nearby Te Anau and checked into a sweet hotel. It had heat! And a lovely lake view! The receptionist was also sooo nice to us. We should have stayed there the other night too!

The South Island is beautiful everywhere!

   Since we had a Milford Sound cruise booked for Friday instead of Thursday, and all our plans had been rearranged, we didn’t have much to do Thursday. The weather has been messing with my plans this whole trip, and this was just another thing to work around. So, Thursday we ended up just walking around Te Anau, buying some souvenirs, and getting groceries. We also saw Ata Whenua: Shadowland at Fiordland Cinemas. The movie is just scenes from Fiordland, but is so spectacular. It took years to film, and was done mostly by helicopter. Fiordland is so remote, so it was cool to see all the scenes we would never get to see, and that had probably been untouched by humans!

   Friday morning, we had a cruise scheduled in Milford Sound in Fiordland. We woke up veeery early to get to Milford at 9. It’s a two hour drive, and it is beautiful. Unfortunately, most of our drive there in the morning was before the sun rose! We didn’t see much, and the road was still frosty. Frosty, mountainous roads are not fun. Anyways, we got to Milford a little early and checked into our cruise. We had a bit to wait before we got on the boat, but we were off on our cruise in no time.

Hi Milford!

   The cruise lasted from 9:45 to noonish, and was so beautiful. It was cold though! The boat has a nice seating area inside, and decks outside. We went outside when we could, but we spent a lot of time in front of the heaters inside! The cruise was amazing. We went around Milford Sound, and saw taaaall mountains, the bluest water, neat rock formations, waterfalls, and some wildlife. I’m so glad we did it, even if it was freezing and windy!

Cool rocks!

Can you see the teeeeeny tiny boat to the right of the waterfall?

That gives you some idea of the size of these things!

Cap'n Gail, at it again.

:)

We got so close to this waterfall... we got wet!

The iconic Mitre Peak.

   After our cruise, we had the two hour drive back to Te Anau. This time, it was light out, so we could see all the beautiful views! We stopped to admire Homer Tunnel, a 1.2 km long tunnel running through a huge mountain. Luckily we didn’t have to wait for the traffic light, which only changes every 15 minutes! We also stopped at The Chasm, a divide in the rocks formed by a river, a cool lookout, and the Mirror Lake, which was so still and reflected some of the lovely mountains. We took our time getting back to Te Anau, then took a short break before we kept driving down to Invercargill, the southernmost city in NZ. It was a lovely drive, but I felt like we had been driving all day – how exhausting!

The Chasm. The rocks were so smooth!

This cheeky little Kea walked right up to us!

Zoomin' through Homer Tunnel.

Pop's Lookout - beautiful!

The Mirror Lakes on a perfectly calm day.

   We went to our backpackers in Invercargill when we arrived, but quickly decided not to stay there. It was so sketchy! I made a reservation online, and of course all the hostels make themselves look good on their websites. This one in particular looked so good online, but when we got there it was small, crowded, and dirty, they took cash only, and our room was just a glass door away from the TV room. Needless to say, we got out of there as quick as possible and found a decent hotel to stay at. We have really been spoiling ourselves lately!

The view from the bottom of the Earth!