Milford Sound

The far southwest corner of New Zealand's South Island is known as fiordland. If you take a look at a road map of the island you'll see that this is the place where all roads come to an abrupt halt. From Queenstown we drove to Te Anau, a small little town that serves as a way-station for the fiordland. From where we could either move down to Manapouri and get a boat-bus combination to Doubtful Sound, or else drive up and slightly east to Milford where boats could take us directly out on the waters. We opted for Milford Sound - it was further away and would involve retracing our steps to move on, but it was much less expensive than getting to the more isolated Doubtful Sound.

We never regretted our choice, both the drive there and the 3 hour catamaran cruise around the sound were spectacular. During our week's ramble around these parts we were very lucky with the weather. It's well into Autumn here in the Southern hemisphere, and we've had a lot of rain or cloud cover in Christchurch. On the road we had almost unbroken sunshine. Even though Milford Sound is one of the wettest places on the planet (6.5 m of rain a year; one day in two it rains; a drought is 9 days without rain), the only time we got wet was when the skipper one of the waterfalls that lines the steep sides of the sound. Autumn sunshine brings another great advantage in this part of the world - a variety of leaf colours that are hard to imagine. Every hue possible between gold and deepest red presented itself sooner or later, often as part of a breathtaking natural composition set into the steep mountainsides.

The cruise brought us out to the edge of the sound, to the Tasman Sea. The last time we looked on this body of water it was from the other side - from Sydney. I feel nostalgic for that city more than any I've ever visited, so much so that even looking at the Tasman Sea was a boost. On cue, more than a dozen huge southern bottlenosed dolphins came alongside and in front of the catamaran and surfed on its bow waves. The wild dolphins we fed in Tangalooma seemed even more delicate and alien when compared to these robust creatures. But the same mutual curiousity defined the 10 minutes or so we spend in each other's company. These individuals turned on their sides to look up at us, and reacted enthusiastically when we waved back at them.

From Milford sound

We got back into the car and made a dash south to get to Invercargill in good time for dinner. We would use this town as a launchpad for the Catlins Coast - the southern drive that takes in fossiled forests, and a place called Cannibal bay - on our way to Dunedin. More on that tomorrow.

Duncan from Sydney join us tomorrow for a few days, bringing our number up to 6! Letizia and I realised that in our trip so far we four have never really been alone for long periods. In Sydney and Brisbane we had friends around us (in Brizzy it was more like being part of a big family with the Petts!). China was the place where we relying most on each other's company. We will return to that state when Giovanna leaves us in a few weeks, and things are likely to stay that way until near the end of our trip when we meet up hopefully with Letizia's mum in Peru. We will see, by and by, what kind of challenges that isolation might present.

And Then There Were 5

We're on a magical mystery tour at the moment. Giovanna joined us in Christchurch and after an Olympian effort to overcome jetlag, we went on the road 2 days later. So far we've been to Lake Tekapo, Queenstown, Te Anau, Milford Sound and we're now in Invercargill. The plan is being made as we go along - something that I'm particularly enjoying.

For such a relatively small country (compared to where we've just come from) New Zealand looks very big. The mountains and plains go on and on, and around every corner there's a different landscape. The mountainous centre of the South Island is completely different to the coast - the latter looking very much like the UK and Ireland. The scale of the Southern Alps is immense. If you want to feel small, come to New Zealand.

Lake Tekapo was a half-way stop on the way to Queenstown, but a good one. And the road that leads from it to Queenstown is a spectacular collection of turquoise lakes, shadowy passes and snowdusted mountains. You can tell you're getting closer to Queenstown because the traffic (what little of it there might be) speeds up. Queenstown is the adrenalin-soaked heart of the area, fuelled by bungy, whitewater, jetboating, skydiving and much else, and it seems to siphon in tourists and spit them out at high speed on the arterial roads that lie on either side. We indulged in a little extreme activity - more on that in a Queenstown post - and two days later we were on the road again. This time to Milford Sound.

I'm getting into blog-debt. I can't do Milford Sound justice without dedicating a post specifically to it. For now, let me say that it was a 300 km trip from Queenstown to Milford Sound, for a 3-hour tour of the waters there. And it was worth every kilometer. That was yesterday. We finished up the day in Milford with a 300km dash to Invercargill (the route brought us close enough to Queenstown again to slingshot off it's heighted energy and reach the South coast). Here, we're positioned for a run along the Southern Scenic Drive (Catlins Coast) to Dunedin, with the option of stopping off overnight if we find something that interests us enough (and weather to enjoy it in - so far we've been extremely lucky on that count).

The dynamic of our group has changed, slightly and effortlessly, with the arrival of Zia Giovanna. This is a group that has worked well in Ireland, Italy and France, so it's no surprise that we get on so well this far from home. As well as being so popular with Nina and Sara, Gio adds two extra camera lenses to the group. Watch here for some of the results (when we get back to Christchurch.