South Island road trip - part 2

Destination 7: Te Anau

After Dunedin and before heading off to the Fjordland we stopped at Te Anau which is famous for its lake and the glow-worm caves. Visiting the caves was pretty cool – limestone passages, cascading waterfalls underground, complete darkness and silence beneath thousands of glowing blue-green simmer glow-worms.

Glow-worms are small insects that live in the dark caves and are able to produce a brilliant internal glow through its system that helps them to hunt for their prey.

Drive to Fjordland

Driving to Fjordland towards Milford Sound is pretty spectacular – no people, no cities, only mountains, forest and of course, sheep:) New Zealand has about 40 million sheep compared to 4 million people. One smaller farm has about 10 000 sheep and bigger ones at least 50 000 sheep. So the farm lands here are massive and you can see them everywhere.

Destination 8: Fjordland - Milford Sound

This is probably the most famous tourist destination in New Zealand. It’s beautiful, calm, peaceful and truly remote. Milford Sound’s Mitre peak (1600m) is one of the highest peaks in the world rising from a sea level. We had one of those tourist boat trips, which I think is not the best choice for such a place, but since we didn’t have so much time this was the easiest and fastest way to see Milford. If I would go there again, I’d probably take at least 2-3 days to stay there because Fjordland is huge and besides Milford Sound there is also Doubtful Sound which is at least 5 times bigger. I’d probably try the Milford track which is about a day walk up on the mountains, take a private boat or kayak. The beauty of Milford is when you can enjoy it in private with no big crowds around.

Destination 9: Queenstown

Queenstown is the New Zealand adventure capital so you can pretty much do any outdoor adventure sport or activity you can imagine, but it’s also damn expensive.

Destination 10: Wanaka

Wanaka is about 2h drive from Queenstown, a lovely little city. It’s famous for its Puzzling world Be A-mazed. Have a look at some of the illusions and puzzles above. You can honestly spend hours there…it’s really cool.

Destination 11: Haast

Route from Queenstown to Haast - the most beautiful scenic drive on the South Island, just between the mountains and rivers.

Destination 12: Franz Joseph Glacier

One of the popular things to do in the South Island is to climb the glacier. It was quite an interesting experience, but unfortunately we had too much rain. Then again, you would be very lucky if you get sunny weather because it rains there about 250 days a year. If you have more money, the best thing to do is probably the scenic flight which will take you higher to the glacier with purer snow and ice.

Destination 13: Punakaiki Pancake rocks

The famous and unusual limestone rocks that look like pancakes started to form about 30 million years ago. These pancake rocks have blowholes, which means that if the ocean is rough enough the heavy water swells thunder into the caverns beneath the rocks and huge water spouts blast skywards through the blowholes like a fountain.

Drive from Graymouth to Westport

The most awesome long coastal highway…I love this drive, it’s inspiring, romantic and the perfect place to escape for thinking, dreaming, writing or painting.

Destination 14: Cape Foulwind

Not too far from Westport is this beautiful coast line with marvellous view to the Tasman Sea. Perfect place to enjoy the sunset and the most peaceful of all the places I saw during the trip.

After seeing most of the South Island these are my top 5 favourite places:

1. MacKenzie district - Twizel area and Mt Cook
2. Abel Tasman
3. West Coast drive from Queenstown to Haast
4. West Coast drive from Graymouth to Westport
5. Fjordland – Milford Sound