driving to milford

The drive to Milford Sound was fantastic. We were on the bus before 7am but the first 2 hours of the trip (before getting to Lake Te Anau) are pretty uneventful so we made the most of it and had a nap. After stopping for breakfast at Te Anau the sights were much more spectacular - the driver stopped as much as possible for photo opportunities, which despite being very touristy I was more than glad to do.

First stop:

Just a couple of minutes later we stopped here:

where it rains nearly every day of the year! The driver thought the sunshine was too good an opportunity to miss.

It was a little while until we got to the Mirror Lakes. The view is truly astounding (I'm running out of adjectives here...). The first part of the lake is so-so, you can see a reflection of the sky and vaguely the mountains but we were disappointed thinking that it was that image about which there was so much hype, however, following the path around the corner we saw this:

The bus was glass topped, so as we drove closer to the Sound we could see the peaks of mountains through the roof:

Obviously it's not great for photography but if you have the opportunity it would be great to experience it for yourself.

More scenes from the drive:

 

 

 

 

loooongest bus trip of my life

The title implies that I didn't enjoy this incredibly long trip, but, in all seriousness, I did.

I was hesitant about committing to the 9 hour ride from Christchurch to Queenstown but in retrospect am very glad that we did. The first few hours saw us driving with rocky snow capped peaks just off to the distance to the right, as we crossed many little streams with crystal clear, or slightly aqua coloured water weaving it's way through stony grey creek beds. Most of these streams had loads of colourful lupin flowers growing by them, I couldn't get a photo of this though because we only ever saw it from the bus. This pic is actually of the sea of lupins at Lake Tekapo:

They come in heaps of different colours and appear over much of the South Island.

Anyway, what really amazed me about the scenery from the bus was the incredible juxtaposition, especially between Geraldine and Queenstown. If I had any artistic talent I would move here. From the same window we could see:

this photo from Alpine Pacific Tourism (I couldn't get a good enough image from the bus)

 

if anyone knows what the (blurry) circle of boxes to the right of this photo is, PLEASE tell me!

 

 

Extreme Picnics on blogspot also has a fantastic photo at this link.

 Once we got close to Queenstown we were a little worried to see the lanscape looking like this:

but there was just something eerily magnificent about seeing these immense mountain ranges (The Remarkables) shrouded in cloud. It's as though this is how they are meant to be seen, so when it started raining right before we disembarked the bus we didn't even mind.