On Tuesday morning we drove from Queenstown to Te Anau. Anne, who is no longer in her mid-twenties but in her late-twenties, was bemoaning her lost youth. The weather was glorious, and the lady at Te Anau YHA told us that it was the first nice day they'd had in five months!
We were there as a base for our day trip to Milford Sound the next day. SO, Wednesday morning we were up bright and early for the two hour drive through the mountains. Literally through one of the mountains as there's a small dark tunnel cut through. It's quite scarey driving through it!
Once at the fiord (they call it a sound but, in fact, it's a fiord and not a sound at all!) we took a walk to a nearby waterfall, and then checked onto our boat for a cruise. We cruised for nearly two hours in this Lord of the Rings scenery. We weren't dodging arrows from Orcs on the banks, but we could have been. It was a really good cruise. And the weather was fantastic, unusually for the region.
As we boarded a girl took our photo, with a view to selling it to us for a lot on the cruise. Anne and I never buy these photos, so both arranged to look sideways as she took the photo for a joke. "Perfect" the girl said as we laughed and laughed. The photos were developed on the boat, and before the end of the cruise everyone's photos were laid out for us to peruse. They were The Worst Photos You Have Ever Seen. Dark shadows obscured some people, and on ours you couldn't even see our eyes, so the effect of our naughty joke was lost. The silly girl obviously wasn't used to the sunny weather. Why they showed us the terrible photos I have no idea. They should have binned them and told us the camera was broken. Monkeys.
On the way back to Te Anau later that day we had a few stop-offs for walks and sights. At one point I got in a grump and we had a row. This culminated in Anne telling me to calm down whilst driving. "I AM CALM", I screamed. Oh dear.