Its brightened up again - a little bit - the morning that we're setting off from Franz Josef and its second time lucky getting to see the glacier. There's clouds looming over the tops of teh mountains though, but we still get a good view. Fortunately though we've found a glacier in Argentina that we will try and get to visit where we'll have a bit more time to hang about until the weather lifts...
The onward drive to Queenstown and Jon & Alix lives up to the expectations of South Island driving, and as the weather starts to lift, we get great views along the River Haast plateau with its waterfalls and surrounding mountains, past Lakes Hawea and Wanaka where we stop for coffee and the view over Queenstown as we drive in.
Its great to see Jon & Alix again, and lovely to be in a home once more when we can chill out a bit more, use a strong shower, and generally relax and be looked after! Its pizza and a good catch up that first night.
There's great views out of their lounge over the Lake to the Remarkables Mountains in the distance which are beautifully snow-peaked. Throughout the morning we get tempting glimpses as the clouds lift, but they never disappear completely, and despite a beautiful rainbow, the rain sets back in, so we catch up on internet admin and do a bit of washing before having a stroll around the town centre, which is very picturesque and geared up for all the tourists passing through. We're also pleased to discover how efficient the NZ AA is. The car wont start, but they are there to help within about 15mins!
Its good that the car is up and running as we're driving down to Milford Sound the next day - a round trip of about 600km, but truly worth the effort. Its not nearly so far as the crow flies, but due to enormous mountain in the way, we have to cover three sides of a square to get there. But what a drive it is. Having had some stunning scenery so far in the South Island, we're blown away even more by this drive, stopping off first at the little town of Te Anau, which has a pretty lake and the best pie shop in the whole of NZ, and then endless viewpoints along the way to the Sound to look out over snow capped mountains, mirror lakes and waterfalls spouting from mountains looking like veins in the rock. And thats before we've even reached our destination!
Milford Sound is a fjord, presumably like the ones you find in Norway, surrounded by snow peaked mountains along the 2km or so passage to the Tasman Sea. We board our little cruise ship along with about 50 others, and set off mouths open with the sun shining taking in the vista. Its picture postcard perfect, and probably the most awesome place that we have visited. The pictures say much more than I can.
The reverse drive is through sunset, and, although hard to imagine, is even better than on the way. A stunning day out.
We're up to Good Friday now, and Jon & Alix are off work, so they drive us up to Deer Park Heights, a hill on the opposite of the lake to their house, Its lots of fun as its full of deer, alpacas, goats, donkeys and other farmyard fun animals all desperate to be fed. They know where the food comes from - tourists in their cars - so come ambling over to you when they see you have the silver tin of food, and wont leave you alone until they have had their feed! Meanwhile in the distance are equally stunning views back down to the town across the lake, and locations from the shoot of Lord of the Rings which must have been a cinematographers dream to shoot.
While our hosts go for their first midwife visit, Luce & I head into town, and up the gondola which is a cable car really to have a go on the luges, which is go karting really, and a lot of fun, even though Luce wins. I could go on more about the views we have while we watch some parascenders jump off the hill, but that would be just too repetitive, believe me they were great.
Once we're back in the safety of Jon & Alix, we head over to Arrowtown, an ex-gold mining town which has been lovingly restored to loo picture book cute in an old fashioned sort of way. There's also a great pub with a roaring fire, perfect to chill out in front of on an Autumn day. Its a bit odd that Easter is in Autumn, and the trees are starting to turn beautiful golden orangey colours and its April. Also odd that the rules say that booze can only be sold with food on a Good Friday, so we have to get some snacks first, They act as a good starter to the BBQ that Jon puts on for us that evening, some great NZ lamb cutlets. We've packed in a lot today, but there's still time for a skype chat with Jude, Simon & Ruby back in Sheffield!
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