Fjordlands

8th
We made an angry phone call (again) to our camper van hire company and then made our way back to the Firestone tyre company to see if the rim had arrived ... Hallelujah, thank the Lord, it had. So we now have a functioning spare and feel more reassured that we can avoid getting stuck somewhere for days if we should get a puncture. Then on South and then West out to Te Anau in Fjordlands, the second biggest World Heritage site in the world. We went to the visitor centre and watched a film about the Fjordlands; how they were discovered; their unique features and how they change through the seasons. Then we went for a walk along the Te Anau lake (the second largest in NZ after Taupo in the North Island) to visit a bird rescue centre where they rehabilitate injured birds until they can be released back into the wild (or forever if needs be). We were lucky enough to get a really good viewing of a bird called a Takahe; thought extinct at the start of the 19th century, a few were discovered in Fjordlands in the 1940s and there are now about 200 known birds. The problem with the conservation of this bird is that it only breeds once a season and 20-30% of the eggs are infertile; of those that survive the introduced predators as chicks, they need to survive three more years until they are ready to breed themselves. At the moment any that are found on the mainland are moved to 2 predator free islands in Fjordlands. Anyway, you can see in the photos how amazing they are, they are big, about 63cm tall, and weigh about 3 times as much as a chicken; their feathers glow - just fantastic.
Then we started the 120km journey north again to Milford Sound (named after Milford Haven in Wales because the first guy to arrive their was a Welsh guy on a whaling boat). The road takes you through amazing scenery; grasslands that look like the prairies in the US, it looked like they should have a Buffalo herd grazing; the huge mountains on either side that just seem to shoot up vertically out of the earth (glacier U shaped valleys); snow on some of the upper slopes; rain forest with huge fir like trees and fern trees; clear, clear, clear lakes and streams - the water was so transparent you could see the stones on the bottoms.
We passed through the most amazing tunnel that had taken 20 years to complete. We waited about 10 mins for the traffic lights to go green and then entered with noone else around, after about 10m the road just dropped away and we were going down in the tunnel at about a 30 degree angle, down and down. We couldn't believe that people had cut out this tunnel by hand, it was about 500m through solid rock; you can see in the photo how far down the cliff it is, it would just be impossible to get through to Milford without it. It was lucky that we had bothered to book a camping space because when we got to Dunedin the campsite was full! We hired the DVD 'Lord of the Rings' in the campsite so that we could check out Hobbiton that we had visited in the North Island - it was strange to watch it now that we know all the secrets!! We had to keep on winding it back so that we could check things out!

9th
We awoke to a cold but clear morning amongst the mountains. We were down at the dock by 9:30am to take a boat out onto Milford Sound (should be called a Fjord becuase it was cut by a glacier, sounds are cut by rivers). On our tour we saw waterfalls, fur seals, the dripping mosses on the near vertical rock walls, three dolphins, a couple of tiny fairy penguins (that shouldn't be around at this time of year so it was a bit of a bonus), cloud clad mountain tops, some with snow and the crystal clear waters where you could look down into the depths. The unique thing about this place is that after rain the tannins in the fresh water that flow down into the fjord can make a 10m layer of fresh water on top of the sea water below. Because the tannins can block out the sunlight many creatures are tricked into living at much higher levels than they would normally and therefore there is more opportunity to see them. We took the option to disembark and visit the underwater observatory, a room that has been built 10m down under the water with viewing windows out into the Sound waters. The perspex is really thick but doesn't magnify what you see and outside each window a little ledge has allowed corals, anemones, and tube worms, shell fish, sponges and lots more to take hold; in turn these have attracted loads of tiny fish and in turn the big fish come to prey on these. Some fantastic views included a brief visit by a 2m shark and visits from huge shoals of fish.
Once back at the dock we started the drive back to Te Anau, this time we stopped at all the points along the way; the Chasm, an amazing waterfall that has sculpted fantastic curves into the rock; mirror lakes, where you get to see the mirror image of the mountains towering above (but slightly wavy for us due to a few very active ducks), various rivers and streams with fantastic coloured stones and pebbles to investigate; the remains of last winters (last Sept) 12m snow fall in the shade of a mountain and still absolutely enormous and the huge number of awe inspiring views up and down the glacial valleys. Great drive, 120km that took us 4.5 hours to complete! Whilst we waited to go back through the amazing tunnel a Kea (ground parrot) came to visit us on the road - what a treat!