Te Anau - January 13 to 20, 2007

The week we spent in Te Anau, and especially the day we spent at Milford Sound may well have been the high point of the trip. Te Anau is right on the edge of Fiordland National Park, an area which is incredibly beautiful and contains many mountains, deep lakes, and unusual wildlife.

When we arrived, the weather changed from cool and damp (Dunedin) to sunny and beautiful with highs around 30C. Being near the 45th parallel, and at the height of the summer, it was bright until after 10:00 p.m. The first few photos below were taken at the Amber Court Motel where we stayed and show the garden and family dog.

Te Anau is a fairly small town without that much to do, so we golfed. We really enjoyed the Te Anau Golf Course and we played it four times during the week. It was very inexpensive ($20 per person greens fee) and a great example of a very playable golf course operating with almost no staff. We only saw one person who did all of the inside jobs, and one other person who maintained the course.

The day trip to Milford Sound was awesome. The pictures below will give you a taste of the mountains, streams, wildlife and people we met. Milford is massive and it's hard not to stand in awe when you first see it (like the Grand Canyon). It's very difficult to capture its scale, colours and majesty in a small photo. Several of the shots below are also in the "wallpaper" section on this website, where at full-screen size they look a little better.

Next stop: Queenstown