Leaving the town of Wanaka hurt. It had been the sort of place where we just felt at home, and we were driving into the unknown, something we are used to now yet it can often still get us down.

If you haven’t read our last post about Wanaka and Queenstown, click here to open a new window!

We pulled into the town of Te Anau late in the evening, and found that we couldn’t camp there, so had to drive 15 minutes back out of town. On a dark night we put Kenji to sleep in a gravel car park beside the main road.

The next morning we drove back into Te Anau. It is a town, yet whenever I use the term ‘town’ in reference to New Zealand, it may be a little misleading. Since the entire South Island of NZ has a population less than the small English county of Surrey, not many places here would be considered as a town in other countries…more like a village. Te Anau was nice, but we quickly moved through en route to the attraction it serves as a gateway to – Fiordland National Park – in particular Milford Sound.

Milford Sound is a truly iconic location, rightly on a ‘must-see’ list of NZ travels. If you aren’t familiar with it (and you will be by the end of this blog post) then there are a lot of Lord Of The Rings references to Milford Sound. Everything in NZ seems to have a ‘LOTR’ reference, great if you’re a fan, less interesting if like us you aren’t a ‘hobbit-botherer’ (I quote Lonely Planet….hate mail to them not me please). Many of the scenes featuring soaring valleys or thick forests were filmed here.

Milford Sound is accessed by a single road about 120km long, weaving its way into the fiords, with Milford Sound the gem at it’s tail. Many people focus their interest on that gem, but it does a disservice to everything else.

The scenery early on during the drive is pretty impressive, at the time it feels spectacular, except that as you round each new corner it gets better.

From the wide flat bottomed valleys, the road rises into narrower valleys as mountains soar higher either side. Rivers and lakes decorate the route, providing endless reasons to stop and take in the beauty.

We chose to travel slowly, stopping regularly to appreciate the scenery. That would transpire to be slightly ill-judged as the scenery would only get better further on, but after a day of awe we settled into the last affordable campsite on the road, maybe 2/3 of the way along.

We washed in the river, surrounded by the ever-present lupins, considered an invasive species here, but no less beautiful, and we went to sleep under the guard of towering mountains all around.

The next day we had planned to do a short walk up Key Summit, but as we neared the car park we were shrouded in fog. We hoped that as we walked up to the summit it may clear or we may rise above the cloud, but once at the top, no amount of waiting and hoping would help, so we enjoyed the view (below) and carried on down to the car park.

Before continuing the drive, we wanted to go for a wash, which involved finding a lake or stream. I found a spot, pulled up and had a wash myself….it wasn’t an ideal spot but would do. Ness then had her turn, heading off. A couple of minutes later I hear a shreik…I jump outside concerned as to what is happening, and see Ness running back towards me. I ask what happened and she replied “there’s a fish sucking on me, and not a good one!” We finished it there and we’re back on the road.

Weaving through the ever more beautiful environments we realised that we should have spent more time up here and less back  lower down. The views became breathtaking as we approached the Homer Tunnel, one of only a handful of places in the country were you can cross from East to West, then as we emerged from this route through the mountain itself, the amazing panorama of Milford Sound begins to truly reveal itself.

Narrow ridges plunging deep into the valleys weave across each other, all showing the ancient paths of glaciers out to sea. The road descended sharply and we reached the finale where the sea meets the deep valley, and parked up for our cruise.

We had been unsure about paying for a boat cruise through Milford Sound, always reluctant to spend money, yet having found a good deal it was thoroughly worthwhile. A cruise took us out through the Sound to sea, and back in.

Mountains rise kilometres vertically out of the sea, with waterfalls cascading down and seals lying around on scattered rocks. It is worthy of its acclaim, though I admit that I may have set expectations a bit too high after hearing so much about it…. Much as celebrities are smaller in real life, so was Milford Sound… A couple of hours was enough time to go all the way out and back.

We walked back to Kenji at the end of the day, and went to start the engine. Nope! Had left the lights on. Inconsequential in a normal town, or even in what you’d normally consider the ‘middle of nowhere’, but quite an issue when you are 120km from the nearest phone signal, and soon to be a long way from any other people as everyone retreats down the valley at the end of the day. Thankfully a few people were around and could help us try a push start, but without enough power to disable the immobiliser, nothing happened. We were getting a little concerned.

Thankfully, one of the last people to return to their van did have a jump start battery in the back….something we’d definitely be buying if we were hanging around in NZ longer. Many thanks exchanged, we were soon back on the road.

We took a bit more time on the drive back to enjoy this part of the area, stopping to take in the grandeur.

We stopped beside a river where we had dinner, looking up the the beauty around us.

We had endlessly discussed whether or not to do a particular mountain route the next day, one called the ‘Gertrude Saddle’. It is hard to get a grip on how hard something actually is based on online write ups, as you don’t know the experience and confidence level of the author….but the official page insisted that it shouldn’t be done in damp conditions… the next day was due to turn damp in the mid-morning. Our hearts sank as we decided that we shouldn’t do it, resigning ourselves to leave the park and come back another day in the distant future to truly appreciate it.

We drove out of the fiords as the sun set, aiming to leave the national park to camp somewhere for free rather than in the overpriced camp sites there. We were sad to leave somewhere so beautiful, somewhere which called to our outdoorsy spirits, without having really taken in the mountain environment. But it wasn’t to be on this trip, the weather ahead looked grim, and we didn’t have time to wait for it to improve. We’ll be back!

The next day we continued South, on what is called the ‘Southern Scenic Route’. The propoganda around this is pretty incredible, we’d read some great leaflets about this road trip around the region of ‘Southland’ in the deep South of NZ’s South Island (that’s a lot of South!). In hindsight, it was a very effective technique to get us and other travellers to visit areas which really aren’t worth going out of your way for. Nonetheless we did it and enjoyed it!

It began by heading down from Te Anau towards the South coast. We passed through several towns where it soon became apparent that the brochure was flat out rubbish. One village had a claim to fame of having once (many years ago) won a competition for making the best sausage in NZ. It had never gotten over this, with billboards around the village pronouncing it as the Sausage capital of the Southern Hemisphere or similar. We didn’t stop.

One little gem Ness found was well worth the stop. Clifden Caves was just off the main route, and when we arrived we saw a couple of other cars parked. We donned boots and headtorches, and followed a few minutes behind a group of guys in shiny white converse trainers and no headtorches….did they know something we didn’t?

A small path led into the mouth of a cave, just big enough to crouch down and walk into.  As the light faded to total darkness, so too the cave became smaller until soon we were crawling through sections on our stomachs. Soaked and muddy we followed little reflective markers which made sure we didn’t get lost in an endless labrynth of tunnels deep in the hillside, the sort of misadventure that leads to disasters (or a lot of TV coverage and a feature film).

Occasionally the cave would open out into sections we could stand in, and admire the other worldly rock formations carved by torrents of water over many years.

We started hearing voices ahead, so were clearly catching the group of guys up. We waded through a knee deep lake and found them at a narrowing.

As we looked through, we discovered that there was a chest deep lake ahead, accessed by some awkward bridging moves down into the small cavern below. The guys, some still in trainers, some now carrying their shoes to avoid getting them dirty, and with just one phone light between them, were a bit stuck.

Thankfully for them, a father and young son had been coming the other way, and the father had done this before, well prepared enough to be in a wetsuit. He actually carried a couple of them across on his shoulders, while we found that by going around the edge of the lake we could keep our waists and chests dry.

With our headtorches we helped them find the bottom of a ladder which would start taking us up several levels and eventually out. We scurried up the ladder and soon left them behind, knowing that this was all pretty straightforward.

A few minutes later we emerged soggily into the sun, with big grins. It had been a really good little adventure, only 40 minutes but a lot of fun…..and especially so because it was free and self-guided. Something this accessible in the UK would surely have been turned into a paid and guided activity, taking the sense of adventure away from diving into the dark and unknown.

We dried off in the van (our boots would take 3 days to dry) and when we saw the guys emerge onto the road, we set off in Kenji.

We reached the South Coast, an impressive area of beaches, tall cliffs and expansive sea, and had lunch as we watched dolphins play below us.

We continued along the coastal road, enjoying the scenery and intending to spend the night in Invercargill – the biggest town in the region.

We got to Invercargill and…wow….what a miserable place! We had a shower in a leisure centre (always nice to have a hot  shower after 4 days of rivers and lakes), and tried to find a redeeming feature to this desolate town, to no avail.

We decided to go and check out ‘Bluff’, a peninsula jutting out to the South of the island. That was an even more miserable place – wind and rain battered this barren landscape, which is often thought of as the Southernmost tip of NZ, a lie which no doubt helps keep it on the map.

We moved on to camp beside a beach on the outskirts of the Catlins, a forest park where rolling hills and thick woods tumble into beautiful beaches. We awoke to find that the rain had stopped and the clouds were slowly parting. The day was spent exploring beaches, forests and waterfalls, as well as seeing the rather obscure ‘teapotland’.

Ness was rather upset that we didn’t see any penguins at the penguin beaches.

The next day we finished off the Southern Scenic route by driving up to Dunedin, the second largest city in South Island (a moderate sized town by international standards). The road North to Dunedin took us past endless gorgeous beaches and into this historical city.

‘Dunners’ is one of New Zealand’s most historical and cultural cities, and you instantly feel that when you arrive. While parts have the typical wooden houses and styling, much of the city could be mistaken for Europe, with beautiful architecture in a more classical style. It is known as ‘the Edinburgh of the South’ due to the large numbers of Scots who moved here, and while it would be wrong to draw too many comparisons to such an historic place as Edinburgh, you can really feel the influence.

Dunedin takes some of the beauty and style of European cities and puts it in a beautiful setting where rolling hills meet sea, golden beaches and inlets dotted with Islands. We were instant fans.

We had a little explore and cooked dinner in the park. Dunedin is particularly welcoming to travellers as there are very few restrictions on where your can camp, as long as you are respectful. It was almost unfortunate that in such a van-friendly city we weren’t going to be vanning…. But we still got the best deal by far!

John and Marelda, who had so wonderfully and generously hosted us in Wanaka, lived primarily in Dunedin. We were welcomed to their house, to find it an even more beautiful abode that their Wanaka home. I feel it would be rude to go into too much detail, but it was a truly special place.

I was aware that John was a senior member of Forsyth-Barr, which I understand is the largest privately owned bank in New Zealand, and I realised that he had been successful in this. We hadn’t quite appreciated the scale of that success until we spent time with him in Dunedin. The biggest building in the city, beside the cathedral, is the Fortsyth-Barr building, and they seem to sponsor everything in the city. More interestingly, John is the director or on the board of more than a few handfuls of private companies and charities, including health boards where he oversaw building the hospital, education boards, the air ambulance charity and countless others. In his free time he was also the representative of the Australasian continent to FIBA, the international basketball association (equivalent of FIFA in soccer). His capacity for work and success was breathtaking, especially when it came on top of being a father to his large and wonderful family. He appeared to know everyone in the city, and engaged with everyone in a warm and friendly way.

Spending time with John was a fascinating and valuable experiences something we have both learned a lot from!

Having spent time with their eldest daughter Samara in Wanaka, we were also fortunate to  spend time with their youngest son Tom, who manages a funky asian-fusion restaurant in the city centre. He was a lovely and laid back guy whose company we loved.

For a few days we explored the city, drank a lot of coffee, and climbed on some beautiful and peaceful beachside cliffs.

We also visited one of the many beaches. Tunnel Beach is a bit special as it is accessed by a person-sized tunnel, it had been dug down into to the cliff in the 19th Century so that a local homeowner could create a private beach.

While in Dunedin we looked at our calendar and realised that of our 9 weeks in New Zealand, we only had 5 remaining. We decided that there was no way on earth that we’d be ready to leave in just 5 weeks, so extended our stay by another 2 weeks. We were utterly enthralled with New Zealand and knew we’d never regret staying longer.

After a great stay, we headed out of Dunedin. We left via Baldwin Street, which was apparently the steepest street in the world until 2019 when the title was taken over by a road in Wales. I feel that the concept of this is a bit false, the street in Wales (in Snowdonia, near Tremadog) leads to a castle and so is hardly a new road. The discovery in Wales that there was a Guinness World Record for such a thing suggests that much of the rest of the world may have yet to declare their steepest street. The people of Dunedin allege that their street is still the steepest really since Baldwin Street has houses whereas the Welsh street doesn’t. Grand political issues apart, it was a steep street and we were wide eyed as we took Kenji up and down it in a very noisy first gear.

We were headed back to our spirit town of Wanaka. The plan was to go to Franz Joseph glacier on the West Coast to do a skydive, a route which would take us through Wanaka. Naturally we wanted to stop off for a couple more nights there.

We’re were welcomed back by the wonderful Marelda, and soon by John who arrived for the weekend.

We spent a day climbing (no dramas this time, if you read our last post) and wanted to do one more mountain day. We realised that we really ought to do Roy’s Peak, the iconic summit sitting high above the town. We found this rather uninspiring as it is the route that everyone does, a wide zig zag track all the way to the top, and we’d seen that the car park was always rammed full. So we came up with a plan.

We spent the day relaxing in town, drinking coffee by the lake on a gorgeous sunny day, then had a very early dinner. At about 5pm we set off, parking in a rapidly emptying car park and starting up as the last of the other walkers passed us heading down.

As the sun set that evening, we had the entire spectacular ridgeline to ourselves, the sky like a natural kaleidoscope above us, and the city glowing below. The beauty was wonderous and we were thoroughly pleased with our decision.

As the last rays of light faded, we tightened up our trainers and ran back down to Kenji, headtorches illuminating the way.

It wasn’t until we got back to the house that Marelda showed us some really cool photos she’d taken with a big zoom lens, from their balcony many miles away we were visible on our own atop the ridge.

Our skydiving plans were slightly flummoxed by a change in the weather which now looked rubbish for a few days. We considered staying in Wanaka to last it out, and were deeply tempted, but realised that we’d already spent more time there than we should so decided to head on. We would flip the figure of eight route we had planned, and go back to Christchurch, the place where our New Zealand travels began.

We were very sad to be saying goodbye to John and Marelda, a family who had welcomed us with the most open of arms. We have been lucky to meet some very special hosts during our travels, but these guys were exceptional. We will always be grateful for how they took us into their family, and we will certainly be seeing them again.

We were also very sad to be leaving Wanaka, somewhere we’d loved so much. As we headed North, we were certain that we would be returning one day in years to come. The drive North was familiar, through the plains and hills of Mackenzie county, past the cute town of Twizel where we stopped for lunch, and the beauty of Lake Pukaki and Mount Cooke. It took all of our strength to not return to our favourite camping spot there which you may remember from an earlier post…. We had been right when we stayed there to realise that in terms of true ‘freedom camping’ we had peaked very early.

As the evening drew in, we arrived back into Christchurch, a city we had a lot of affection for. We had done the South of South Island. We had deeply loved some parts, and been a bit indifferent about others, but it had been one of the best months of our lives. We were hoping that there was more of it to come!