Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of the mrlukeniktravels blog from Invercargill, New Zealand. As mentioned in this blog’s title I am (almost) at end of the world. Well, to be precise the southern most point of mainland New Zealand lies around 25km south in the town of Bluff. At this point I am the furthest point from home for this trip. South of here lies Stuart Islands, the Auckland Islands and then Antarctica. Despite all that is yet to come, strangely I am turning the corner towards home…sort of. I have taken a short break from mountain landscapes for a few days, but I shall see a few more before leaving the country.
Whilst in the south-western corner of New Zealand I have had the pleasure of exploring the Fiordlands National Park (it is properly spelt with a j instead of an i). The park is an UNESCO World Heritage Site, putting in league with the Taj Mahal, Stonehenge and Machu Pichu. Fiordlands contains 14 glacial valleys- of which Milford Sound is the most famous. These features are not actually sounds, being created by glaciers not rivers, but at the time of naming by Europeans the Norwegian word fjord had not entered the English language. During my time in Te Anau I travelled up to Milford Sound to take a cruise around the fjord. Unfortunately while I was there the summit of Mitre Peak remained stubbornly cloaked in cloud. With the region receiving up to 9m (27ft) of rain per year, there were plenty of waterfalls to see.
Due to geological anomalies in the fjord sea creatures that usually live in the deep ocean live near the surface. I enjoyed taking a look at these via an underwater observatory. I’m sorry to report that the resulting photographs were of poor quality. Best see for yourself! The weather was pretty good for the cruise, the Tasman Sea relatively tamed. After a skin-scouring windy outbound passage, the return was much more pleasant. A trip under one of the waterfalls (known locally as a glacier facial) my skin routine was complete for the day….
The town of Te Anau lies on the eastern edge of Fiordlands National Park and the nearest population centre to Milford Sound. Queenstown, over the other side of the mountains is a considerable drive away. In fact, travelling back along Highway 94 yesterday towards Invercargill yesterday, I passed at least thirty tour buses headed from Queenstown to Milford Sound. That gives an indication of the the popularity of the area. Whilst I was eating lunch on the shore of Lake Te Anau (the largest lake in New Zealand) I overhead someone ask “Which one is Mitre Peak?” That would be a three hour drive away from here through the mountains! The town still boasts some good hiking and views of the scenery New Zealand is world-famous for. Pretty much any direction is a good view in that area.
My time in New Zealand is rapidly coming to an end unfortunately. Next week’s blog will be my last before boarding an eastward flight. It does not seem like I have been here nearly five months, arriving back in October. Soon I will head to the east coast again to Dunedin before heading north back to Christchurch. Even though I have not walked the 3,000km New Zealand Route from Cape Regina south, I have seen a good amount of the country. Obviously it is impossible to see and do everything, but it has still been a fantastic leg of the trip. Not quite done yet though! Anyway, I shan’t preempt next week’s reminiscing and round-up of all things New Zealand (and, therefore, Kiwi).
That is almost it for this week from Invercargill and the Southlands. As I previously mentioned, next week’s blog will be my last from New Zealand. I shall be back in Christchurch by then and, once again, without a car. From now until then, as always, there is my Twitter feed which can be found on @mrlukeniktravel. If you’d like to see pictures similar (and perhaps slightly better) to those in this blog, Instagram and @mrlukeniktravels is the place. Finally, why not sign up to the email list? You will get an email and blog post preview every time I press publish. That being said, for now, stay safe and travel on!
