Te Anau and Milford Sound

Fly into Queenstown and hire a bus or hire a car and drive to Te Anau. Unlike Europe a holiday in New Zealand won’t break the bank and you will be impressed.

Te Anau sits on a beautiful lake. To get the most out of a visit to this town take a helicopter tour. For what you get the prices are reasonable. You can take a helicopter tour to view the magnificent fiords. As part of the journey your pilot will land you on the top of a snow capped peak where you can stretch your legs and marvel at the fact that five minutes earlier you were basking in the sun and now you are throwing snowballs at your friends.

From Te Anau you can book a tour of Milford Sound. There are 2 main companies that run the tours. Both are well organised and their boats are modern and well equiped – you can’t go wrong!The drive from Te Anau to Milford Sound takes about 2 hours and it is magnificent. There is so much to see and do along the way. Make sure you allow at least 3 hours for the drive so that you can take your time and stop along the way.

One of the more active things to do along the way is to walk to Lake Marian. The hike up to Lake Marian at first seems pretty easy , of course that only lasts for about the first 200m in and then…yup you guessed it, uphill all the way baby.  Once you reach the top it is definitely worth it.  After 1 ½ hrs you emerge from the bush to a most spectacular view – Lake Marian a striking sight situated in the middle of surrounding snow capped mountains with a beautiful little waterfall.  What makes it even more special is tthe isolation, way up in the middle of nowhere. If you feel like doing this hike allow 3 hours.

When you get to Milford Sound, hop on the tour you booked and relax and enjoy the view. What a view! The snow capped mountains encompassing this fiord are incredible, the water is a beautiful deep emerald blue and every so often you pass beautifully cascading waterfalls.  The air is crisp and the wind fast. Along the way you will see seals, bird life and the occasional dolphin.

If you do the Milford Sound cruise and the Lake Marian hike in one day you will be hungry when you get back to Te Anau. No problem, there are some great restaurants in Te Anau. Most are reasonably priced, even for a minibus hire guy like myself.

Last tip – when visting New Zealand, try some of their Pinot Noir.

For adventure travelers, is Australia or New Zealand the more extreme down under experience? – Part 3

Before I travelled down under, I knew very little about New Zealand. I knew it was there but beyond that, my knowledge was rather minimal besides some crazy dance that the rugby team do before a match. I didn’t know why my travelling buddy had booked for us to stay in the country for 2 months!

I went to Australia before New Zealand, expecting to encounter all kinds of extreme goings on, kind of like the adventures that I used to see Steve Irwin getting into on TV. I went on some trips in Australia to the likes of Fraser Island and the Blue Mountains where the poisonous Funnel Web spider and the dangerous Dingoes lurk in the mist. However, I found the trips to be so cautious that I don’t think I ever went close to any potential risk. The most extreme thing I did was not wearing sun tan lotion. I’ll give it to Sydney, I had a great time there climbing over the Sydney Harbour Bridge which was quite the adrenaline rush. However, nothing that I did in Australia even compares to the madness of New Zealand.

I started on the South Island in Christchurch but soon moved on to Akaroa. This was a little introduction to the experience as I hopped into the ocean to swim with the dolphins. A freezing cold ocean, coated with fog was pretty daunting. In fact, just driving around on the New Zealand highways in our huge campervan was pretty extreme in itself with the sheer mountain drops.

The next challenge came in Methven where I went snowboarding for the first time. What a rush! Ploughing down unsuspecting holiday makers as you lose control of your board and go careering down the mountains. However, this was nothing compared to the adventures as we moved towards Queenstown.

What can you say about Queenstown? If there was a place for things to do before you turn 40 this would epitomise it. In the space of 5 days I went kayaking down a river, jumped of a canyon, bungee jumped from a bridge, went for a ride in a jet boat which was capable of 360 degree turns at high speeds, went skiiing down a mountain, had a ride on a luge, went ice skating and finished that whole thing off with a 12,000ft sky dive jump a little further north in Wanaka. That’s not bad for 5 days of adrenaline. There aren’t many places in the world where you get such a great mix of climate conditions that even allows you to do all this at once!

There was still more to come! A little further north in Franz Josef I was able to go trekking through a glacier, with a pick axe at the works to fight my way through. This was followed up with a horse ride along the coast bringing us nearer to the North Island. All this and we were only half way round the country.

Up in the North Island there was still time to do some Grade 5 White Water Rafting and to roll down a hill in a big ball filled with water known as Zorbing. Top this off with visits to Thermal Parks and Maori nights and you can’t really go far wrong.

To sum up, New Zealand is the place to go if you want to find extreme! There is everything and anything to do!