The day of our drive from Te Anau to Milford Sound,dawned (well, I think it tried) cold, overcast and grey. It did manage, however, to give us an amazing sunrise on the way. Red sky in the morning, Sailor's/Shepherd's warnng! (can never remember which is which) Very true.
The cloud lifted a little then back down again but it never detracted from the scenery. It was an almost ethereal look inside another world as we twisted and wound our way up, then down then into amazing valleys. Wide river beds with swift but narrow rivers. Pristine and pure clear water with an abundance of white toe toe native grass with beautiful feathery shafts (sometimes known as Price of Wales feather) in amongst the red tussock grasses.
The first major highlight is the Eglinton Valley, which was once filled with glacier ice. The valley has steep rock sides and a flat, golden tussock floor - it's a surreal place. Further along the road are the Mirror Lakes - we captured the reflection of the Earl Mountains opposite. Stunning and a rather spiritual place I felt.
The Homer Tunnel signals our descent to Milford Sound. This tunnel, which is hewn from solid granite, took nearly 20 years to complete. From mouth to mouth it measures 1270 metres. It is an awesome spectacle driving through this narrow, low, dark one way tunnel. Another world!
Once out of the tunnel, the road twists and winds with many switch back corners. Down, down, down and finally Milford.

We checked into our cruise boat and were welcomed on board by Nick, a young guy from the Scottish highlands. Captain Dave was getting the boat ready for our Milford Sound cruise. A weathered man, semi retired, who had been at sea all his life. Again we struck it lucky! There were only 4 other tourists on board. We had these two really knowledgeable, and funny, guys spread amongst 6 passengers. Really a super personal experience with a lot of laughs, a lot of cold, a lot of freezing water from overhead waterfalls and a whole heap of Southern hospitality. The weather wasn't great with low mist and cloud and biting cold but the trip was totally awesome. I chose not to go with big tourist operators on most of our planned touristy things and it does pay off. Again, the shoulder season is also a great time to travel. So that was our MUST DO, without a doubt!
THE MUST NOT DO was out of our hands. On the drive to Milford, when we stopped at the entrance to the Homer tunnel, orange warning lights flashed on the dashboard panel advising to take the vehicle to the nearest workshop. Yeah right!
Other messages flashed up but the main engine warning light didn't disappear like the messages. Out comes the Mercedes manual. Reading, reading, reading. Nothing very clear about what could be wrong and with no phone coverage, in fact with no civilisation within cooee, we had no choice but to venture forth, very, very carefully.  
All downhill basically, really downhill (nothing pointed to brake problems thankfully), which was a blessing as Bill soon found we have little to no power and with foot to the floor we could only reach around 35km/hr. Great! How the hell would we ever get out back up through the mountains. Nothing we could do except do the cruise then ring for assistance when we got back. We knew the earliest we would get help would be at least 2.5 hours. So after ringing we settled back in the camper, with no heat in the steadily deteriorating weather and darkness of the afternoon descending like a blanket. After 4 hours a young mechanic from Te Anau arrived with his computer and determined we had a problem (still really not sure what), he reset the computer then took us for a test drive, or should I say a test spin back 6 km into the twisty, windy hills then down again.
The look on Bill's face was classic as he mouthed words to me like "f####en lead foot", and other choice lines. We slewed around corners, had an extremely intimate acquaintance with a bus over our side of the road, that just kept coming and listened for breaking glass and crockery as everything on board slid from side to side! I hadn't laughed and enjoyed myself so much at poor Bill's expense. The young guy certainly could drive and the reality was that we weren't sitting in the cabin, but in the main part of the van which obviously swayed and bumped around a lot more. So, after 12km or more of hanging on for dear life, the young guy announced all was well and off we went for our 2.5 hour drive back. The dark was creeping in more and more as we left at 4:30 pm. The drive back to Te Anau was uneventful but tiring for Bill concentrating so much in the darkness as he perfectly negotiated every twist and turn, climb and descent, bend and corner and rain and cloud! Worthy of a big feed at the local pub in Te Anau where we made short work of awesome southern food.
An eventful and very long day! Awesome!