Te Anau.
We had heard good things about Doubtful Sound so decided to do both Doubtful and Milford (they are actually fjords not sounds).
So after arriving in Te Anau we booked a coach/ cruise tour for Doubtful Sound for the following morning and a coach/cruise tour of Milford Sound the day after.
This was our big spend for the trip, all up about $USD600.
Doubtful Sound. On a clear frosty morning with fresh snow on the mountains we walked the short distance to Real NZ HQ to start our tour.
A short bus trip to Manapouri then we boarded a boat. An hour or so cruise on NZ's 2d deepest lake with wonderful mountain scenery. Down the lake's West Arm near a mostly underwater hydro station we disembarked then caught another bus. The buses here have to come in by barge as no roads lead to the road we were about to journey on. About an hour or so on the bus through magnificent pristine forest (a few stunning vista stops along the way) over Wilmot Pass and down into lonely Deep Cove. We boarded another boat and began our cruise of about 3 hours. A one word description would be MAGIC. Mountains on either side, numerous islands, wildlife inc penguins, seals, dolphins, albatross etc. Doubtful is I think 10 times the size of Milford.
We even briefly ventured out into the Tasman Sea.
It is a long day, about 8 hours but the time flew.
Milford Sound.
A later start (10 am) as our small Te Anau group would be joining a bus coming from Queenstown 2 hours away.
The bus journey to Milford from Te Anau was about 3 hours with a number of stops along the way. Fortunately I never get sick of stunning scenery as there was plenty along this road.
Milford is a stark contrast to Deep Cove/Doubtful Sound. An airport and a huge harbour building.
The cruise on the smaller fjord of Milford Sound was shorter than Doubtful, maybe about 90 minutes. I wondered whether Milford would be a let down after Doubtful but not at all. Milford is narrower and a bit steeper, seems to have more waterfalls and is probably a bit more spectacular if anything. Our skipper backed us right up under one of the falls. One of the many dolphins we saw decided to show off at one stage and did a series of flips and rolls.
The return bus journey was much quicker without the stops. Another long day but a brilliant one.
Regrettably we had to move on from Te Anau the following afternoon. We headed back in the general direction of Queenstown stopping for the night at the southern end of Lake Wakitipu near Kingston. Another freedom camping night, plenty of snow up high and frost all around. Glad we brought that hot water bottle.
Next day we skirted by Queenstown and went into neighbouring Arrowtown. Cute as a button the streetscape has the look of a Western movie set.
A great informative museum. A gold mining town in it's day.
We moved on in the afternoon driving up a series of steep switchbacks to a high point on the Crown Range. Great views from the roadside lookout stop. Even better a foot track led higher up the range. I threw on the trail runners and shorts while my wife made herself a cuppa. I ended up running to a nice high snowy viewpoint and a great whooping high speed return. My wife was on her 2d cuppa by then.
We continued on into Wanaka. Wanaka is quite beautiful but it was only going to be a brief stop.
We would be heading to the West Coast the next morning.