We arose early…..too early, so after realising that it was very very cold if we pulled our blanket off, and it was still very very dark if we pulled the curtains open we decided to hit the snooze button on the alarm 6 times before finally conceding and getting up, at least by that time the sun was starting to come out. We quickly threw on some clothes which were freezing cold then dashed to the shower. Then the speed race was on, how quickly could I strip and get in the shower so that I didn't freeze to death. I was clever and made sure I turned the shower on before starting to strip so that I could check there was hot water and wasn't going to be jumping from the fridge into the freezer. Thankfully the water ran hot so I managed to get in with only a few seconds in the freezing cold. I then got showered then realised I had to turn the nice hot water off……. This did not sound like a good idea, so as with the alarm I kept hitting the snooze button on the nice hot shower for a while to stay in the warmth. Finally I realised that New Zealand's summer wasn't due for another 9 months……I considered it…… but then realised I might not get away with staying in there for that amount of time, plus I would miss my flight to Fiji. So finally I braved the cold switched off the shower and dried off as quick as possible. After getting into my not so warm clothes I opened the shower door. Looking out to the rest off the bathroom I saw the new challenge, due to the shower being so warm the whole room was misted up so I had to fight through the mist to find the door again. I headed for the car and started sorting some bits out, Rachel arrived 5 minutes later, she obviously struggled more then me to get out of the warm shower. We had some breakfast, then nipped to the supermarket for some supplies before getting on the road to Milton Sounds.

The drive to Milford Sound was amazing and we stopped a few times along the way. The first stop was at ????? lake, we were the only car there so had a nice peaceful short walk to the lake to see some woodlands and a view of the lake then headed back and jumped back in the car. A bit further on we arrived at a stop in a valley with an amazing view up to some mountains, we took a few cool photo's with some rock towers just before a big bus load of tourists arrived. We quickly got back on the road to try get ahead of them. The next stop was Mirror Lake, this was an lovely lake, which reflected all the mountains around it. But unfortunately 2 bus loads of tourists arrived so it was packed, so we couldn't enjoy the piece, blooming tourists (I would like to point out that we are not tourists, we are travellers, completely different). We were soon back on the road stopping at a couple more lakes and a stop with a short walk to an impressive waterfall, which you had to cross a wobbly rope bridge to get to. If anybody else ever goes here, please take my advice, use 1 hand to hold your camera and one to hold the bridge, I nearly went over many times. The drive then took us through the mountain, yes you read right, they had decided it was too much trouble to build a road around the mountain so they just dug a massive tunnel through it. We weren't stupid, we have seen 'Lord of the Rings', we know in New Zealand they have humongous spiders in tunnels through mountains. So we waited for the traffic lights to change from red to green, then we were off as fast as the car would go through the tunnel. I also closed my eyes, didn't want the spider scaring me and me turning into a wall. Thankfully the tunnel was very straight so as soon as I could see light through my eyelids I opened them, just in time as a wiggly road sign popped up and a sharp bend came in the road. We continued the rest of the way stopping at a few viewing places for mountains with snow on the top, all the time dreading the fact that we had to return through the tunnel later that day.

When we finally arrived at Milford sound it was nearly 2, so we walked round to the harbour area and booked onto a cruise. We then spent half an hour looking round the harbour area before boarding the boat, we rushed quickly to the top deck and managed to get some seats. It sailed out into the sound and after only a couple minutes we were already seeing a stunning waterfall. We then continued around the sound (which we later found out wasn't actually a sound at all, its a Fjord, carved out by ice not water, but since there was 14 wrongly named sounds in the area New Zealand decided not to re-name them and just call the whole area 'The FjordLand'). We saw many beautiful mountains and waterfalls, it was stunning. We eventually came to the opening where it joins the ocean, the sound, and then the boat headed back on the other side of the river, giving us chance to see some waterfalls close up.

When we reached ground again we drove back towards Te Anau and pulled into a cheap campsite for $5 each. It was very pretty next to the lake, but had just 1 loo which wasn't too bad, but we decided not to stay there as we thought it was a rip off to just get 1 loo to share between a load of other vans for $10. We continued on and arrived at a campsite on the outskirts of town which was still good value $28 our cheapest site we've been on, and probably had the nicest amenities we've been in. So we were glad we continued on. We had a nice dinner, went through our 500 odd photos from the day then went to bed.