The Beautiful South

The South Island has been gorgeous. We flew into Queenstown, and started out that night for Te Anau. This is the standard departure point for Milford Sound.

It is an amazingly scenic country. There are mountains and lakes and rivers everywhere. Also, there are fields of sheep everywhere. One nice thing about coming in the spring is that it is lambing season, and somehow I never get tires of seeing baby lambs bounding around and wagging their tails.

Milford Sound is about a two hour bus ride away from Te Anau. Our bus did not leave until 11, so we started with a little hike around lake Te Anau. One area has some birds that are being rehabilitated, and we were able to see the very endangered takahe. It looks a lot like the pukeko, but you see those everywhere, whereas the takahe population is down to less than 100. We were lucky. The birds have been there for a while, but they are usually hiding.

The bus trip was gorgeous. You have new growth, but still some of the old fall colors. Also, we ran into kea, a native parrot, at multiple locations, and they are a really fun bird. They have lots of personality. They are also thieves given an opportunity, so I would not recommend setting anything down around them.

The Sound itself was all fogged in, so we did not see very much. Still, I always like being on a boat. However, it is easy to get the impression that going there automatically means you will see dolphins, and that is not true. Our guide Chris says you have about a 1 in 4 chance, which is not horrible, but no guarantee. We only saw some seals and birds. No Fiordland Crested penguins either.

The next day we took off for Dunedin and the Otago peninsula. This might have been one of the best days of the trip. The area is beautiful, and in the course of our tour I think we covered the entire peninsula. We toured the grounds of Larnach Castle, went by the Royal Albatross colony, then to Sandfly Bay (named for the way the sand flies with the wind, not for the presence of sand flies), and we finished at Penguin Place, getting up close views of many Yellow-Eyed Penguins.

I should end up posting more about everything after I get back. We head home Tuesday. I want to include links and pictures. I have hundreds. I think I am actually going to set up a second blog that is just for travel, and leave this for everything else.

See you all soon.