April 13th-15th Te Anua and Milford Sound

April 13th-15th Te Anua and Milford Sound

We headed back to Te Anua (our second time here).  This time we stayed at the Red Tussock.  After treat night on Friday we got up early on Saturday and drove to Milford Sound.  This area is technically a rain forest and rains about 300 days a year.  Our last trip was indeed filled with rain.  This time we had nothing but sunshine!  We enjoyed a lovely, albeit much more crowded, cruise down Milford Sound.  We saw lots of bottle nose dolphins.  According to our guide they grow much larger here because of the colder water.  

After the amazing cruise we stopped by the Discovery Centre.  They are not allowed to put any permanent structure within the reserve grounds so it is floating.  It made us all sympathize with poor Grandpa Livermore and his Navy days.

We were also able to go on several very nice walks.  One was Boyd Creek Tops.  It led to a very nice waterfall.  The Chasm was wonderful as well, a strong river had eaten away at beautiful black rocks until it looked like swiss cheese.  Mirror Lake was just that, so calm it looked like a mirror.  It was very cool to see the mountains reflected in the water with fallen trees and rocks in them.

Drive into Milford Sound.

We were above the clouds!

The Chasm walk.

Chasm.

Milford Sound waterfall.

Bottlenose dolphin

Discovery Centre.

Looking up after climbing down the stairwell.

Side view of Discovery Centre.

Mirror Lake reflecting mountains.

Boyd Creek Falls

Kererū (NZ Pidgeon).

Kea (NZ parrot)

Te Anua walk.

Manapouri walk.

B, G, and T on some stained driftwood on Manapouri walk.