"We go?" were the first words in the morning, like we were in a big hurry and the answer was "We go!" In the end we left the
Lake Gunn Campsite slowly, in an hour.
After a short 40 kilometre ride through a little bit of rain and very bad visibility we arrived to our first destination for today,
Milford Sound, where we already booked a boat cruise for NZ$60 per person and this was our last booked thing on our trip.
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| Arrived to cloudy Milford Sound, named after Milford Haven in Wales. The famous Mitre Peak was unfortunately in clouds. The mountain rises to 1,692 metres and is believed to be one of the world's highest to rise directly out of the sea. |
With a mean annual rainfall of 6,813 mm on 182 days a year, a high level even for the West Coast, Milford Sound is known as the wettest inhabited place in New Zealand and one of the wettest in the world. Rainfall can reach 250 mm during a span of 24 hours. The rainfall creates dozens of temporary waterfalls (as well as a number of major, more permanent ones) cascading down the cliff faces, some reaching a thousand metres in length. Smaller falls from such heights may never reach the bottom of the sound, drifting away in the wind. Accumulated rainwater can, at times, cause portions of the rain forest to lose their grip on the sheer cliff faces, resulting in tree avalanches into the sound. The regrowth of the rain forest after these avalanches can be seen in several locations along the sound.
We changed our bikes for a boat. It was great and we had a great company, sandflies.
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| Stirling Falls is one of the permanent waterfalls (Bowen Falls being its counterpart) on the Milford Sound. This one drops 155 m below a hanging valley between Elephant Mountain and the Lion Mountain. The falls are three times higher than much more famous Niagara Falls. |
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| Bridal Veil falls |
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| Exiting the Milford Sound, that is technically a fjord and not s sound to Tasman Sea. On the narrowest point (Copper point) the wind frequently exceeds 180 km/h. |
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| Our captain took us below the Stirling Falls (Wai Maanu - whale resting on the sea), 155 m, named after Captain Stirling of HMS Clio. |
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| Bowen Falls is with 161m the tallest waterfall in the fjord. |
Our boat cruise was over. You can find a bit more info about
Milford Sound by clicking to
Brochure 1 and
Brochure 2. Soon we were back on our bikes with destination back to
Te Anau and more
South with many stops.
On one side of the tunnel it was still very cloudy and cold, but on the other side, we just rode into the great weather.
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| Back on the great roads with great views |
Short stops on some lookouts on the way
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| They also needed a short break |
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| How to quickly clean the helmet. We go! |
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| We arrived in Invercargill and I really needed to change my rear tyre. John also took the opportunity to spend some money and he changed his front tyre. Alis from MotoSouth charged me NZ$ 319 for the tyre (Michelin Pilot Road, first series) and NZ$ 41 for changing. Receipt. |
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| Bluff, Stirling Point, done! |
Swimming in a cold water near Stirling Point, Bluff. Unforgettable.
After the swim I had to find the last
Geocache on this trip and I did it very quickly. Lands End,
GCQ1N1, became my southernmost geocache.
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| As we wanted to leave, some girls came and they wanted to take us to their bachelorette party. We hardly escaped. |
Our riding day was nearly done and we had a plan to find a hostel, buy some food and drinks, cook, eat, drink some beers and go to bed, but as always, the easiest parts usually become the hardest one. Hostel was easy, food shopping too, the complications came, when we wanted to buy a couple of beers. People of
Invercargill and the area around it decided that they don't want alcohol in supermarkets, so after a 20 minute story from the supermarket manager why the situation is like it is he told us that only
liquor stores are allowed to sell it and he gave us directions to the nearest one. We got to the store and it was closed. On Mondays and Tuesdays they work only till 7 p.m. Still not to worried about it, we asked at the gas station for another liquor store and this one was around 5 kilometres away. Good, after almost 500 kilometres another 5 will be easy were our thoughts and after couple of minutes we were there. Situation: CLOSED! What is wrong with this city we asked each other. Our last chance was the 3rd liquor store that we found in Garmin, but when we got there, the store was also closed, yes CLOSED. I felt like I am in a strict
Muslim country, somewhere in the
Middle Age. This can not be
New Zealand in
21st century. Unfortunately it was and since there was no other way, we decided to continue to the hostel and enjoy the rest of the evening with a great dinner and a little bit of red wine from our golden reserves. Well when something goes wrong, usually everything goes wrong. When I was carrying my clothes and the remaining half a litre of wine to the hostel, the bag scraped and our life liquid spilled on the floor. John's immediate response was: "you b@st@rd!" or something like that. That was almost the end of our friendship, but since John is a nice guy, he distracted himself with cooking and he prepared a nice dinner for us.
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| Great dinner (sausages, potatoes and veggies) in a hostel and the invisible glass of red wine. |
After the dinner we had one more idea how to get to the beer and that is to buy it in a local pub. Since I was responsible for destroying the last drops of wine, I volunteered and I walked to the bar that is known for selling beers to locals. After a while I came back with old news, CLOSED.
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| Greenfaced American. |
Just before we went to bed, a greenfaced American cheered us up. He showed up in the room with some green stuff on his face and Noah, the local guy seriously asked him, why does he have a dirty face and if he doesn't have a soap, that he has some to lend him. We all laughed and almost forgot that
Invercargill is the city that should be avoided in a big circle next time.
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