Fiordland

Fiordland is in the bottom South West tip of the South Island.  It is home to some amazing natural scenery, so we took 4 days to explore the area.

Our first stop was Milford Sound, a stunning steep sided fiord.  We explored in Sea Kayaks, which allowed us to experience this special place from water level.  It was a very wet misty day, which made the place mystical - huge waterfalls cascading down the side of the valley.  Beautiful rainbows appeared when the sun managed to peek through the swirling clouds.



Milford Sound from our kayak

The weather is very changeable in this part of New Zealand.  The next day we woke up to blue skies and decided to make the most of this by walking part of the famous Kepler Track.  This took us to the edge of Lake Manapouri:



Lake Manapouri

Although Milford Sound is the main tourist attraction, our favourite place was Doubtful Sound.  It is much more remote than Milford, and we needed to cross Lake Manapouri, then traverse the Wilmot Pass to get there.  Our tour took us on a 3 hour cruise of Doubtful Sound, the highlight coming when a pod of Bottlenose Dolphins decided to come and play with our boat, swimming and jumping in its wake.






Doubtful Sound