NZ Part 10 - Milford Sound

from queenstown we headed to te anau and spent new year's eve there. there was a potluck party which we decided not to join cos we were being selfish. we figured these young backpackers staying in the hostel wouldn't be very capable of cooking up some gastronomic delights and we would be at losing end if we contributed our delicious chicken curry. very kiasu.. hahah...

we monopolised the space in the kitchen, cooked up a storm, seemingly for the potluck party, but then secretly carting all the cooked dishes back to our private room, which came with an attached dining room, kitchenette and balcony overlooking the lake. we had our selfish private new year's eve party, ate to our heart's content and all felt very pleased... by the way, we checked out what was offered at the potluck party and were very convinced that we made the right decision.

we joined the gloworms cave tour on our first night at te anau and it was a fantastic experience. the tour included a cruise across the Te Anau lake to an obscure location where the cave was. in the cave, there were waterfalls and whirlpools - the lighting was done beautifully to highlight these. the main highlight of the tour was taking a short boat ride through the dark grotto, surrounded by hundreds of gloworms. the experience was surreal. no photos allowed though.

the following day we headed to milford sound. there was only 1 way to get there and it is via the Milford Road, a one-lane road. we had to set-off early to avoid the hordes of tourist buses headed there. along the way, we passed by Mirror lake (which is really just a very still pond with a fancy name), a big field of vibrant-coloured lupins, and a stopover point called Kea point (for a reason). At Kea point, we had some encounters with alpine parrots called Keas, one of which tried to attack/eat my car and i had to shoo him off. he dropped a feather on my windscreen in the face-off. it was pouring when we got to Milford sound and we decided not to take the cruise cos the views would be obscured by the heavy rain. we had coffee then headed back, stopping mid-way at the only clean flush toilet stop along the 2 hour Milford Road route. I have attached the picture of the toilet stop so you can recognise it and not have to hold your water for 2 hours.

NZ Part 9 - Queenstown

we stopped for lunch at lake wanaka then headed to queenstown. arrived at the YHA youth hostel in queenstown in the evening and were miffed that they gave us a shared bunker room. we kicked up a big fuss becos we booked private rooms. we managed to cancel the rooms without paying any cancellation charges and headed off to the next door Rydges Hotel. it was even cheaper than what we would have paid in YHA! becos they had a 4-bunk bed room in the hotel - surprise surprise.... the room had carpark view but at the rate they were charging, no complains.

we went whitewater rafting at shotover river the next day. lovely scenery and water was so blue - different from rafting in southeast asian waters which was usually brownish water.

we were planning to do skydiving in queenstown but weather was not good. pity. the other touristy thing we did was the luge. had to take a gondola up a hill, where we could get a bird's eye view of queenstown. very touristy but view was spectacular.