Milford Sound

We are currently in Te Anau as a base for visiting the Milford sound.  We'd already booked a boat trip in the sound.  The drive here started out pretty overcast and it had rained all night.  However, enroute the weather cleared although still pretty cold.  Today, we awoke to a beautiful clear day...what luck as it rains 260+ inches a year, here, and has been known to rain more than 2 feet in 14 hours! Since this area reminds us much of home...and we have been to Princess Louisa with steep cliff-sides, in our own sailboat, so again were prepared to not be too impressed.  Again, we were pleasantly surprised!

It takes 2 hours to drive from Te Anau to Milford Sound.  We passed some spectacular scenery and had a few stops along the route.  One was at Mirror Lakes, which are more like little puddles, but allowed for great reflections.

 Simply gorgeous!

 Along the route, we drive through a long tunnel 1.2 Kms.  Quite a feat to build this.

This is the other end of the tunnel...you can barely see the shed there to the right of the photo.

 This is at the dock for Milford Sound.  this is our boat from the Cruise Milford company.  We really lucked out, here, because there were only 20 passengers on this trip...could have been 40.  That being said, I'd done my homework and booked this trip because the boat was small.  We were so happy we did as some of the boat have 300 or more aboard.  We had so few passengers that we got to take great photos!

 I have to say the photos just don't do it justice.  The walls go straight up with multiple waterfalls.  Absolutely amazing!

 There were a couple of seal groups on the rocks.  Apparently, these are the juvenile males that are chased away from the main colony.  'Big Daddy' doesn't want any competition.

 This is just a sample of the scenery.

 Apparently this area is misnamed as a sound because, sounds are formed by rivers, but fjords are formed by glaciers...and these streams/waterfalls are from glaciers.  We headed up one side, into the edge of the Tasman Sea, then back down the other side.  This is us heading back down into the sound.

 This is the second group of seals...gives you some idea how close we got.  There are no issues getting close to the walls as the sound is very deep.

 We went up to, and then into, this waterfall.  We all got soaked!! Just like 'Maid o' the Mist' at Niagara Falls.

This is us in front of the same waterfall, after the drenching...still smiling!  On to Invercargill tomorrow...one week to go!

Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers

Heading farther down the coast, we stopped at the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers.  I did the walk to the first, but only halfway to the second as it was too much of a grunt.  Of course, there's always one more hill to climb, so Ralph was not daunted.

Here we start on the long trek to the Franz Josef glacier.

This was as close as you could get.  We never thought the south island would be so cold...here we are in our new fleeces as we didn't bring that kind of gear from home.

Ralph could get much closer to the Fox glacier, than we did to the Franz Josef...I'd already turned back by this time.

 A selfie or??

 It's always amazing how blue glacial ice is.

A photo of the New Zealand Alps.  For the most part, we haven't really seen them because of cloud cover. 

 We were heading into Haast and crossed a high bridge of the canyon.  We had to stop as the rapids below were just amazingly beautiful!  This is called The Gates of Haast.  This looks very much like a painting I did a couple of years back!

 This is the same shot, but with vivid colour...it looks much more like my painting.  The water really was turquoise blue, so must have been coming from a glacier.

 A thistle by the road.

And yet some other wild flowers on our route.

 We stopped to see another waterfall and, in front of it, people had built all these rock-balancing towers.  Interesting, but kind of took away from the natural beauty, we thought.

 Sheep and more sheep but woolen goods of merino wool (and possum, of all things) cost a fortune.  A pair of socks is $35, so that gives you an idea of what a sweater would cost!  As well, lamb is seldom on the menus we have seen (except maybe a rump, or stew, or burger)....venison is seen on the menu at least as often.  The do have deer farms here, but no wild deer.
 

 Lots of beautiful scenery...more cabbage trees.

Pancake Rocks and Blowhole

We headed down the coast, from Westport towards Greymouth, with a stop at the Fur Seal colony and then moving on to the Pancake rocks and blowhole.  We really didn't know what to expect, but didn't expect much as we'd seen blowholes before.

 New Zealand has some pretty rugged coastline and huge waves!

 Not a great photo here and, unfortunately, not a kiwi...still haven't seen one.  However, we see these birds all the time...many of them squashed on the road as they seem none to bright and, either don't or won't fly!

 Here is where the seal colony live.  We saw them come and go from the water, but it is so rough here it would appear that they should be beaten to death each time!

 Here's a baby waiting for mama.

 They were all over the rocks below.

 They call them fur seals but we'd call them sea lions as they have external ears and stand upright.

We see these flowers, beside the road, everywhere in New Zealand...another thing to google!

 Here's the entrance to the walkway to the Pancake Rocks and Blowholes...boy, were we in for a surprise!

 Unbelievable rock formations, huge waves, and power like we've never seen!

There were these pinnacles; there were arches and chasms as well.

It is hard to get a shot of a blowhole, but you get the picture.  Sometimes the water would spew all the way across this chasm!

This was the walkway from where we shot the photo of the blowhole.

 Some of the interesting flowers on our walk-about.

These are cabbage trees behind a palm tree.



Westport area

After Nelson, we headed towards Westport and the site of the old Denniston coal mine.

 This is where the Buller River hits the Tasman sea.  These photos don't do it justice but, trust me, you would not want to come and go through these waves!

 And yet, they do somehow??  We were there at low tide so, all we can think is that it must be better at high tide!

This is the way the old mine tracks looked.  The mine was at the top of the hill and the cars went up and down these tracks.

 This is almost all that is left now except a few pieces of track and a couple of cars.

 This is the scar down the mountainside...quite a feat of engineering!

 The beginning of the track heading down.