22nd Dec - Milford Sounds to Te Anau

A bit of a lie in to 8ish..... The weather is still horrendous! I am really glad not to be camping and biking in this.

The others headed off about 8.30 to go to Te Anau and see if they could get a refund for their cruise. I was surprised that the road was open and they could actually make it.

I met 3 other cyclists that are heading South. They were going to get off to Te Anau. I think that it is madness as it is so windy that it is unsafe. You could so easily be blown off the pass in the wind. I am very fortunate to be spending the day with Manuel and have a lift back to Te Anau after a cruise.

We spent the day in the lodge watching the horrendous weather outside and drinking tea and eating biscuits. I faffed with my photos and my diary and did some reading. Chatted with Shuna and Amanda and their friend Dorothy and had hot chocolate with baileys :-)
Me, Manuel, Shuna and Amanda all went on a cruise on Milford Sounds at 4.30. It was great as the weather was starting to turn and apart from the hail at the beginning of the cruise it was reasonably dry. Most of the cruises yesterday and this morning had been canceled and so we were lucky to get on this last cruise of the day. The views were amazing! There were literally hundreds of waterfalls. We saw seals on the side of the lake and dolphins jumping out next to the boat. The boat went right under a waterfall at one point and some crazy Korean guy stood outside under the falls with his shirt off! It was very funny.

The people on the tour said that there had been 3m of rain in 48 hours. Milford Sounds apparently gets 8m of rain each year. The rivers were over flowing and there were many landslides. The tour guides tried to persuade us that we we were seeing Milford Sounds at the best time when there is so much water. It really was amazing and a fantastic place to visit. The cruise is much cheaper to buy front the Lodge rather than the tourist information place ($45 rather than $70 for the same cruise). It was my little treat in NZ.

I really enjoyed Amanada's and Shuna's company and will probably meet up with them again in the next few weeks going up the West Coast.

After the cuise Manuel gave me and another German guy (Daniel) a lift to Te Anau. The journey should take about 1h30 but was kept on stopping to look at the view. Having me stuck inside all day with the bad weather we were all bit hyper (like little kids) and it ended up being a very funny couple of hours drive. We stopped to take jumping pictures and silly videos as we passed through the tunnel. We arrived into Te Anau at 9.30 - just as the shops were shutting and bought ingredients for a treat meal. We had all been eating instant noddles and bread for too many days and so we decided to have steak and veg and a couple of glasses of wine. We picked up Gijes (a dutch guy) on the way (another person that had been stuck at the Milford Lodge that Manuel knew). As there was no space at the hostels in town they crashed at Kylie's.
We had a great evening with lovely food, wine and company.