I woke up sluggishly with the same feeling as waking on the second day of the OMM with my legs having their own outer body experience and my core body temperature a few degrees below what it should be. Despite of having 80% of the duvet throughout the night Bob obviously felt the same as her first words to me were a concern for the apparent absence of her nose.

Over breakfast Bob had noticed an amusing poster advertising sandfly repellant, the smiles stopped when she noticed the hotspot labelled as 'unbearable' around the south west coast, which was exactly where we were heading for the next few days...

Like the Tutakaras we had seen the day before we sluggishly got going, donned trousers and down jackets, and by 930 we were on the road heading towards Te Anau.

The 3 hour drive along the bleak straight roads through the drizzly Scottish lowland scenery went surprisingly quickly with a coffee stop to complement our excellent gooey blueberry muffins (we also dared to use the facilities which was very much disapproved of).

A quick stop in Te Anau allowed for a weather check with the DOC and then we descended into the Fjordlands. The clouds lifted and the sun burst through as the scenery suddenly became a lot more dramatic. The valleys got narrower, the peaks got higher and the cliffs got steeper before it suddenly felt like We were in 'walking with dinosaurs.' It took significant will power to keep my eyes on the road and even more concentration to keep my mouth from fly-catching. Bob ran out of words to describe it, until we came to k*** Flat which provided some amusement amongst the scenery!

With a very warm smelling Enema we pulled into the carpark to wait to get through the tunnel to Milford Sound. The hanging glaciers, walls of granite and huge sweeping valley were all beyond superlatives and so much more dramatic than any Highland scene.

When it was our turn we crept quite steeply downhill through the potholed tunnel and arrived above Milford Sound. The scenery continued to impress as we parked up, ate our sandwiches and boarded the 'Mitre Peak'.

On the water the scenery can only described by the photos. I doubt that I will ever be somewhere this epic again, and the weather was astonishing, the most perfect conditions the crew had seen recently. We had been recommended Mitre Peak Cruises as they were a nature tour, took a longer trip and had a much smaller, niftier boat to get literally alongside the valley walls, they were superb. We passed impossibly high waterfalls, one of which did a huge ski jump a quarter of the way down launching water away from the valley side. At the mouth of the sound we idled for a bit which caught the attention of a pair of Bullars and a Shy Albatross. These huge birds, although not the biggest, were amazing to watch as they gave us repeated flybys to marvel at their colossal wingspan and impressive features. With the sun beaming down we briefly dipped the bow of the boat under another waterfall before coming back into dock even more in awe of our surroundings.

We walked out to the end of the breakwater and sat, enjoying the enormity of our surroundings, warmed by the sun but chilled by the sea breeze. We eventually returned to check into our tiny allocated section of gravel before returning to the head of the sound to enjoy our books with crisps and our new favourite dip, tomato, basil and feta, as the sun dipped behind Mitre Peak.

Back at the hostel we were relaxing in the lounge after a splendid Spag Bol and who should I look up and see tucking into a big plate of nachos but Hannah Rowland, another founding graduate from Nottingham Vet School! I left Bob happily ensconced with her kindle, a cup of tea and a blueberry muffin and joined Hannah, and her Canadian travel buddy Teagan, for a few hands of gin rummy whilst we caught up on what had happened in the last 4 years! Small world.

At 11pm the bar staff made it very clear that it was time for bed, which Bob had clearly pre-empted as she was snoozing gently on her sofa when I returned. We braced ourselves for what was due to be one of the coldest nights yet and snuggled down, noses safely under the duvet tonight.