The Milford Road

This last weekend (May 31st - June 2nd) in honor of Queens Birthday (public holiday here) we took a trip to Te Anau & Milford Sound. Milford Sound is on the west coast of the south island - Te Anau is the closest town. It's about a 3.5 hour drive from Dunedin. Te Anau was like a ghost town now since it is almost winter - during the summer months tourists swarm to Milford & Te Anau. There is not much to do in Te Anau itself; mostly it's a launching pad for trips into Fiordland, like to Milford Sound. We did take the glowworm tour while in Te Anau. It was sort of like a cross between the Tunnel of Love and cave exploring. You are with a bunch of people on a small raft on a river in a cave, and it's totally dark & cold. When you look up you see what looks like tiny little blue lights - those are the glowworms. They glow when they are hungry, it attracts bugs to fly into their webs. Our boat had a bunch of crying little kids on it - I'm not sure who thought taking 2 year-olds on a cold, dark boat trip was a good idea.

Then we took the Subaru to Milford itself along the Milford road. Everyone talks like this road is crazy scary - hairpin turns! ice! snow! tunnels! It is so modern compared to most roads in this country; two lanes almost the whole way. And the scenery along it is amazing. In early winter when we went it was great to see the snow caps on the mountains.

The clouds and fog just added to the other-worldliness of this area. Fiordland gets an amazing amount of rainfall every year - they measure it in meters here. Everything is lush and green, and there are waterfalls everywhere you look.

The forests in the valleys are rainforests due to all the moisture. There are millions of ferns and moss grows on everything.

Didn't see any hobbits yet.

Just look at the moss! It was amazing; everywhere you looked was green and dripping. The best part was there were no bugs and it was cool. Actually it was rather cold with the dampness, but we bundled up.