You can't come to NZ without visiting Milford Sound (located in Fiordland NP), so here we are. It has been all go geologically here for the last 400 million years. Firstly the grinding together of the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates pushed up a lot of sediment creating all the mountains of the Southern Alps right down to Milford Sound, with added help from volcanos. Then the mountains at the southern end of the Alps dropped back down under the sea, where they collected more sediment (which turned into limestone rock). Yet more plate crushing forced them back up again and finally ice age glaciers (five in the case of Milford Sound) carved out the big crevices (they are fiords or fjords, despite being called Sounds). Wow busy time.

As you can probably guess our mate Captain Cook was the first European to visit Fiordland in 1773, but he sailed past Milford Sound twice as its entrance is at right angles to the coast. But his maps and descriptions soon attracted sealers and whalers who by 1830 had decimated the seal population. The first European to come across Milford Sound was a Welshman, John Grono, who named it Milford Haven after a little place ,yes you’ve guessed after a little place back home. In 1851 another Welshman, John Lort Stokes renamed it Milford Sound.

The area is a bit on the wet side with around 7metres of rain a year which is twice as much as the Amazon. We had delayed our boat trip in Milford Sound for a day because of the rain so were pleased to wake up the next morning to glorious sun. We left Te Anau (the nearest town) at 6.00AM and drove to the boat dock. I say we but I stayed in bed and Peter drove. It was a bit bumpy and the mattress does have a tendency to slide of the seat when you go around corners so it’s not the most comfortable experience. Peter claimed he was driving carefully- I’m not convinced.

They are quite justified in claiming the area as spectacular as even the scenery along the road was amazing (I saw it on the way back if you are wondering). The light makes everything seems so sharp and bright. We stopped halfway at the Chasm (an impressive gorge) for breakfast which a nosy Kea thought interesting as he looked down at us through the top vent. The boat was full of mostly Chinese who seem to get very excited over anything and take hundreds of pictures of themselves using a long stick with their phone stuck on the end. In front of nice bits of scenery they take pictures of each other jumping. I feel sorry for the folks at home who have got to sit through all their photos. The Sound itself is the smallest in Fiordland at 16Kms long and 300Metres at its deepest point. They have an underwater observatory where you can go down 60 feet below the surface and see the fish and other assorted marine life through 120mm thick glass windows. On the way out some Bottle Nosed Dolphins swam by and on the way back we saw a couple of rare Fiordland Crested Penguins.

We left the following day to drive to the very south of the South island to Invercargill and then along the Southern Scenic highway around to Dunedin on the east coast. On the way we stopped at Gemstone bay. It is known for the semi-precious gems that sometimes appear on the beach after a heavy storm. I fancied collecting a garnet or two. Unluckily the only thing we found was a rather large bone sticking out of the sand at the back of the beach- spooky. But on closer inspection there were other bits of pottery and metal around so we think it was more likely an old rubbish pit rather than a dinosaur. Quite far removed from the gems we hoped to find!

Invercargill is, like Dundin, a town settled by the Scots, in fact the Invercargill Scots came from Dunedin around the mid-1850’s when they needed more space for their sheep and a better port to transport to and from Australia. We only stopped here to visit a shop. Not any old shop but the shop E Hayes & Sons opened in 1932 by Irving Hayes. Now this shop is like a giant man shed with every type of tool you could ever want plus, and this is the clincher, a collection of vintage cars and motorbikes scattered around the shop. Peter was in heaven, I thought this find would win me quite a few brownie points. Included in this collection is Burt Munro's legendary record breaking "World's Fastest Indian Scout motorbike", purchased by Mr Hayes in 1977 when Burt retired. Who you may ask is this Burt Munro chap. Well I asked the same question but did remember watching (years ago) a film of his life starring Anthony Hopkins. Burt had a thing for speed and tuned his bikes in his garden shed and achieved some amazing records. On the 26th August 1967 he claimed the World Record Class S-A 1000cc – with an average speed of 183.586mph (one way 190.07mph). This was aged 68,wow. This record still stands to this very day.

Whilst in Invercargill Peter picked up a local paper and as he was flicking through it I noticed a product recall advert. It was not something I usually take much notice of but this made me sit up as it was Heinz who had recalled sliced beetroot because of a processing error which might result in microbial growth. We had just eaten some of that the night before, opps, bit late to take it back

Heading to Dunedin we stopped at a couple of scenic spots. The first was Curio Bay with a rather good petrified forest some 180 million years old. This forest was still standing as the lower parts of the trees were petrified by silica in volcanic mud flows. The upper trunks ultimately fell and also became petrified as did logs washed into the forest by floods. All over the beach you can still see the stumps and logs. The quality of the petrification is so good you can actually see the growth rings of the trees. The bay is also home to some rare yellow eyed penguins which come home around Dusk, so we sat from 6.00 till 8.00 waiting for them. By 8.00 I was too cold so we gave up. Next morning Peter went for a run along the beach and nearly fell over a fur seal lazing around. I am not sure who would have been more shocked. After this we drove to Nugget point to see some fur seals. The road to both these sites was partly gravel and I think Sid was not over impressed with all the bumps. It felt a bit like the old days of ripio roads with Gerty.