Thurs 19th – Sun 22nd Feb
Accommodation: Te Anau Garden Apartment 1 on AirBnB
Thurs 19th Feb
It was a sunny, albeit very windy, morning for our departure from Invercargill and drive up to Te Anau. We had an early lunch stop at the Orepuki Cafe as this had come highly recommended from Bev, the bar person, at the Invercargill Club. The food was delicious and they also had a version of cheese scones that Colleen and I both sampled. They even raise their own sheep and cattle for their lamb and beef cafe items so this is a cafe / restaurant well worth visiting if you’re ever in the area.
We stopped just a little way further along from the Orepuki cafe at Gemstone Beach where there are semi precious stones scattered across parts of the beach. There were some beautiful stones that we’d have loved to have brought home and this is another place worth a visit. We made one more stop to check out the 1899 Clifden Suspension Bridge before reaching our Te Anau accommodation. It is worth noting that the scenery along the drive from Invercargill to Te Anau was absolutely beautiful and made our stay at Invercargill more worth the while.
Our Te Anau townhouse was large, nicely updated, well located, clean and a great base for our 3 night stay. We had dinner at home as we were all tired from our day of travel and had a big day ahead of us tomorrow with a day trip out to Milford Sound.
Fri 20th Feb: Milford Sound Day Trip
It was raining when we all woke up, but luckily it cleared by the time Simon, our guide for the day, picked us up for our tour to Milford Sound, the most impressive fiord of the 14 fiords in this region called Fiordland. We had opted to do a small group tour, with Luxe Tours, so that we could all enjoy the scenery along the way and that proved to be a wise decision and one I would highly recommend if you’re ever considering a visit to Milford Sound. Simon was well travelled and very well informed and gave us lots of very interesting information about the area throughout the day. One of the key things we learned from Simon is that both Milford and Doubtful Sound are not ‘Sounds’ at all, as they open to the ocean; they are both actually Fjords. We also learned that Te Anau currently has a population of about 3,000 but that is growing rapidly as people are being priced out of the real estate markets in Queenstown and Wanaka. Just as a side note, Simon laughed when we said we’d been to Invercargill as he’d grown up there and couldn’t understand why anyone would visit, a point to which we all kind of agreed but we also all agreed that the area had a lot of unrealized potential.
The drive from Te Anau up to Milford Sound was 120 km and took us a bit over two hours with a few photo stops along the way. We were then ushered on to the Milford Haven boat, cruising up and down the length of Milford Sound, to the Tasman Sea entry and back, and this journey took about two hours as it is only 13 km in length. Milford Sound is not the longest fiord in the area but it is one of the steepest and that is what provided the spectacular viewing throughout the cruise. There are only two permanent waterfalls along Milford Sound but, with all the rain they’d had, we were lucky to have an abundance of waterfalls to view on our cruise. Simon informed us that this region of Fiordland had been carved out by 8 glaciers over the years and the sheer and steep sides along Milford Sound were breathtakingly amazing and beautiful at the same time making this a worthwhile experience.
It was near 5:30 pm by the time we got back to our lodging and Colleen wasn’t feeling too well so she opted to stay home whilst David, Mark and I went for dinner at The Moose which offered a view out over the lake and was a nice setting for our meal.
Sat 21st Feb
It was a chilly start to the day but the boys set off for their last bike ride of the trip. Colleen still wasn’t feeling great so I took a stroll around the lake by myself and was surprised that there were so few others out enjoying the morning. We all met up for breakfast afterwards at the Olive Tree Cafe and drafted a revised plan for the day. Initially, we had thought we’d hire bikes and do some sort of ride around a section of Lake Te Anau but Colleen wasn’t up to this so we decided we’d drive out to nearby Lake Manapouri and explore there on foot for a bit. We took a short walk around to Pearl Harbour and back followed by a coffee and sandwich stop at The Church Bar & Eatery before heading home to rest up before dinner.
The only restaurant booking we had for Te Anau was for The Fat Duck as this had been widely mentioned in traveler blogs. Our guide from yesterday, Simon, had highly recommended this place as well and we had our booking for tonight which was fortunate as other folk from our tour mentioned they had tried to get in but they were fully booked out. The moral of this tale is that if you ever plan a trip to Fiordland you need to make sure you book well ahead for restaurants and tour activities. The food was great and this is a place I’d highly recommend if you’re ever in Te Anau.
We had enjoyed our time in Te Anau and think that a 3 night stay is the ideal minimum length of time to stay. There are plenty of other walks and trail bike rides you could do so it would be easy to fill up more days if you were so inclined. Our accommodation was in a most ideal location for a stay in Te Anau so, even though it had some kitchen supply shortcomings, we would recommend this townhouse to anyone thinking of a stay in the area.
