Into Fiordland

After a crazy day of adventure sports yesterday you might have thought that we would have treated ourselves to a relaxing day today.  But as the theme of our big adventure is ‘just do it’ we are straight back on the road as we need to get ourselves to Milford Lodge at the top end of Milford Sound today ready for some more sea kayaking tomorrow.

As we are in the Southern Alps this is not as simple as it sounds.  The straight line distance between Arrowtown and Milford is around 75km, but it is a 300km drive to get around some of the massive mountains.  In particular there is 119km to drive along SH94 to get from Te Anau to Milford which is often shut due to landslides, especially in the spring (it is currently NZ spring).

So we duly leave Arrowtown in glorious sunshine with high hopes for some great scenery on our way to the Fjords.  We stop en route at a local market in Frankton and pick up some nice things for a picnic lunch and then head on out past The Remarkables on our way south.

After reaching Te Anau we stop to refuel Betty as we are getting low and we don’t want to get stranded out in the wop wops without any fuel.  As we start on the last leg of the journey we notice some rather ominous looking black clouds ahead which doesn’t bode very well.

Within minutes the sun has gone and Betty’s wipers are on.  Dreich is as appropriate here as it is back in Scotland!  Predictably the rain gets heavier and by the time we get to the Eglinton Valley there is not much of the U-shaped valley to be seen.  Not to be perturbed by some precipitation we grab the Team GB brolly and get out for some photos.

Shortly after we get back on the road we see a sign saying the road will be shut later on tonight due to the heavy rain earlier in the day.  We get a shifty on and get to the Homer Tunnel as quick as we can.  By this point the rain is lashing down and every mountain seems to have a hundred waterfalls or more.  

It is all very dramatic if a little scary (We passed a recent landslide earlier and some of the rocks were bigger than Betty!).

We get through the tunnel OK and then it’s only a few more kilometres till we get to the lodge.  We get parked up and Mr M draws the short straw to power us up in the rain.  Then it’s an early tea and early to bed as we are sea kayaking at 7am tomorrow.

Mr & Mrs M