Milford Sound

Arrowtown & Queenstown

We left Wānaka pretty early as we had a bit of a drive to get to Te Anau. Coming through the Cardrona Pass was pretty epic, it was quite a winding highway with some hairpin turns. With Queenstown visible off in the distance, we decided to take a quick stop first in Arrowtown.

Arrowtown heritage main street is what you would expect to find in a old western town in the USA. Old-style buildings with false fronts and even places to tie up your horse should you choose. We walked down the street, mainly window shopping, but stopped in an old-time candy sweet shop to get some snacks for the road ahead.

We got lunch in Queenstown and every street was jam-packed with tourists. We wanted to grab lunch from the famous Fergburger but the line was well over an hour long, so we went to Devil’s Burger, on a locals advice, and had a quick lunch break at the beautiful water front before heading straight to Te Anau.

We made a quick rest stop at a park in the town of Mossburn which turned out to be the southern most our family has been so far on Earth at 45.7 degrees South. Just an hour later, we arrived at our quaint, and aptly named, Lakeside Motel & Apartments on the shore of Lake Te Anau. Highly recommend this spacious-room motel for families in Te Anau.

Milford Sound

While the weather was beautiful for the drive down, the next day turned quite wet and rainy. Normally that means a gloomy day of not going outside, but today we were taking a cruise on Milford Sound. We took a glass-topped bus from the Te Anau I-site Visitor Center, that we booked as part of our cruise.

Riding in the bus was so much better than driving, especially with the glass roof to see above us. When it rains in Milford Sound, thousands of waterfalls cascade down all around you. Our 7 year old tried to keep count, but gave up after making it to 300.

The bus stopped a couple times on the way there and back so you could do a little walk and take pictures at the Mirror Lakes and a beautiful field in front of the mountains.

A highlight was definitely passing through the Homer tunnel, a 1.2 km long, single-lane, tunnel. There were waterfalls crashing down on both sides of the mountains around us. My coworker warned us that if we drove, there was a chance Kea (an New Zealand parrot, endemic to the sourthern alps) might fly down on to our car and rip off the rubber seals on your windows that they enjoy so much. While I saw a bunch later on a 10km night run in Aoraki/Mt Cook national park, we didn’t see any this day.

The port was busy as we arrived, being the middle of summer holidays and our ship was fully booked. There was plenty of room aboard and they had 2 levels of indoor seating and plenty of outdoor viewing. We bought hot chips (fries) there as a snack and alternated staying with the babies (weren’t keen on the rain) and going outside to view the stunning scenery.

The ship goes up one side and back down the other, crossing over just before you leave to open ocean. Like I mentioned above, rain in Milford Sound is a good thing as you can see thousands of waterfalls all around. The ship hugs the coast and when you get up and close with the waterfalls like Stirling Falls you get blasted. They affectionately refer to it as a “Glacier Facial”. I was up on top near the babies, but Leslie and the older kids went to the bow and just got blasted by it.

As the ship crosses over to the other side, the waves get a lot more intense, especially if you are following in the wake of another ship. I stayed up in the bow with our oldest daughter. The waves started to come over the front and just drenched us all.

We were a bit soggy as we rode back through the tunnel and past all the beautiful scenery, but none of the kids really minded. There was too much to see out of the windows on both sides.

The next day we visited a few spots around Te Anau. There is a small bird sanctuary just on the edge of town where you can see the famed, flightless Takahē. They are look like a smaller version of the birds from the Pixar movie Up.

We visited several beaches while we were there, our favorite being Frasers beach, south of Te Anau on the beautiful Lake Manapouri.

Coming back, the older kids and I caught the last light on Lake Te Anau. A beautiful, calm ending to a great stay in Te Anau.