After Cromwell and staying at Jan’s and Colin’s lovely place, we drove to meet Cathy and Dave in Te Anau. Te Anau is a little town (population less than 2000 people) in the Southland region. It’s at the boarders of Fiordland National Park, close to famous fiords Milford Sound and Doubtfull Sound. On our drive from Cromwell we passed Arrowtown and Queenstown, and once we got closer to Te Anau, it started to rain. Rain is common on the West Coast, and in Milford Sound it rains nearly 6,5 meters each year, making it one of the wettest spot in the world. But without the rain, it wouldn’t be so beautiful!

Cathy took us to see the proper way to spend Kiwi Christmas; camping! Her friend Bev is going to a camp site to Mavora Lakes Conservation Park for every Christmas. It was great to see how it really is on the camp sites, and how you can make the tent so cosy. We made a walk from the southern end (the friendly camping neighbor took us there by car) back to the north end of the South Mavora Lake. It was a great walk with lovely forests and impressive landscape with mountains and the lake.

TIP! If you need any tramping equipment in Fiordland, Bev definitely has it all: https://www.bevs-hire.co.nz/

Fiordland National Park is the largest national park in New Zealand, and in 1986 it was given World Heritage Area status. A lot of Fiodland is only accessible by boat, helicopter or floatplane. Dave showed us films of the area, thus we got to see some parts we wouldn’t otherwise be reaching! Also, we visited a little cinema in Te Anau, and they are daily showing a film of the area (http://fiordlandcinema.co.nz/fiordland-on-film).

We made a long day trip to the National Park, and we were lucky, as it didn’t rain the whole day. The Milford road is unique highway in New Zealand. It goes right into, and through, the heart of the Southern Alps. We drove the Milford road all way to Milford Sound (120 km). The road is narrow and winding drive, so be careful. Also, there is a Homer tunnel with traffic lights, it can take up to 20 min to wait for your turn.

Milford Sound is the northernmost and most accessible of the fiords. It’s really magical and epic place. We took a cruise boat and saw changing waterfalls (was just after the rain) and fur seals!

On our way back to Te Anau, we stopped for many spots at the Fiordland National Park. The Chasm was our first stop coming back. Two foot bridges over the Cleddau River offer dramatic views of a series of powerful waterfalls and the walk is really short (only 20 min). Thousands of years of swirling water have sculpted shapes and basins in the rock. The sheer velocity of water gives an appreciation of how much rainfall the Milford Sound area receives per annum.

Next stop was at Lake Marian walking track. The start of the track is at Hollyford road and in the beginning, it crosses the Hollyford river by swing bridge. Then the path follows spectacular series of waterfalls. We didn’t continue all way to the lake (3 hours return), but the bush and the waterfalls were great!

This day, our longest walk was to be to the Key Summit. The track starts at The Divide car park and follows the famous Routeburn Track for about an hour. It then branches off on a 20 min climb to Key Summit for spectacular views of Fiordland National Park. The weather was perfect, and the sceneries were well worth the effort! It was breathtaking mountain panorama, with changing forests on the way up. This track is definitely to be recommended, it’s excellent shortish (about 3 hrs.) walk for seeing variations in vegetation with height gain.

At the end of our way back to Te Anau, we still stopped at the Mirror Lakes, a walk proving reflective views of the Earl Mountains from the tarns (mountain lakes).

With the help from Cathy and Dave our day was as perfect as it can be around the Milford road, they told us the best spots to stop and helped organizing the ferry cruise at the Milford Sound itself. Many thanks!

Cathy and Dave offered us to stay in their place for three nights, so we left back to Wanaka on Christmas Eve (included on our previous travel story: https://ursprungsland.wordpress.com/2017/01/31/lower-south-island-wanaka-queenstown-and-cromwell/).

Before leaving Te Anau, we tried to make some Finnish Christmas pastry. See, this looks like “joulutorttu”, right?

Inspired by the films from the National Park, Jukka also made a little film from Fiordland. It’s the only film we actually have from the trip, so, enjoy!