The drive from Te Anau to Milford is a scenic journey in itself. It's an actual drive with about 16 marked stops along the way. Some of the stops are short walks off the roadside and others were just outside our window. We were planning on doing a Milford Cruise that afternoon, so we jammed past all 16 stops and headed straight for the Sound itself. We got there with just enough time to board the small boat and we were off! The cruise took us around the edge of the Sound and we were surrounded by steep cliffs covered in different forestry, beautiful waterfalls, and the occasional Fiordland Crested Penguin, the rarest penguin in the WORLD! Yes, in the world. It's unknown where they come from or where they go, and they're tiny cute little penguins that dip and dive beneath the water surface. The Milford crew consider them to be "as rare as a shooting star." The cruise was lots of fun, but of course ... rainy and cold! Logan's motto for the entire trip was, "we're roughing it!" and he wanted to stand outside on the deck the entire time, but I couldn't handle. It was too freezing.
After the cruise, we stopped off at nearly all 16 stops along the scenic drive. Our mutual favorite was Mirror Lakes. The name is pretty self-explanatory. The lake literally acted as a mirror, even on a windy day like the day we went!
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| Nice mountains huh? Well, actually this is the reflection of the mountains in the water. I cropped, cut & flipped the picture :) Gotcha! |
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We were now a day ahead of schedule because we had left Queenstown earlier than expected, and we didn't know what to do! Logan had talked about driving down to Invercargill, the most Southern city on the South Island, while we were making our plans, but it didn't seem like there was much to do there. Well, we had a whole day to spare, so we drove down there anyway! (This largely added to outrageous mileage.)
We drove down to Invercargill and stayed in a holiday park for the night. The next morning, we woke up early and drove along the Southern Scenic route to Dunedin. It was a long drive that we hadn't planned for, but we're both really happy that we did it because it was amazing! It was a similar drive like the Milford scenic one, but a lot longer. A LOT. It went along the coast from Invercargill to Dunedin. It took us the entire day on Saturday, and even part of Sunday morning. Along the way, we stopped at different beaches, lookouts, saw some sea lions, and the most beautiful waterfall we've ever seen. The name of it was Purakaunui Falls. We saw a picture of it on the brochure, and we had to see it for ourselves. The drive into the falls was 2 km along a dirt road covered in large, sharp rocks and the entire time we were hoping our tires wouldn't pop. Well ... thankfully, it was worth it! The waterfall was amazing! See for yourself!
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