And this time it's Lake Te Anau, the second-largest in New Zealand with another small town of the same name plonked on its shore. We arrived here late this afternoon after saying goodbye to the family back in Queenstown (we'll be meeting back up with them again elsewhere next week). Te Anau is a good base from which to do a myriad of crap throughout the Fiordland area, but we're only using it as a stopover en route to the incredible Milford Sound tomorrow.

This is part of New Zealand's State Highway 94. It runs 120km from Te Anau to Milford Sound and is arguably one of the most stunning in the world (according to all the guide books and based on what I've seen, and I've seen a lot of roads :)

There are multiple hiking trails throughout Fiordland, but if that's not your thing then this road is the next best thing to give you a taste of the region's vastness and beauty. Forests, lakes, rivers, waterfalls, mountains, nature walks - this hilly and curvy road not only has it all but is a bloody great drive!

The vista from one of the many viewpoints along the way. Driving this road without stopping would take around 90 minutes, but it took us about four hours hehe. The last time I drove this road (almost ten years ago) it was the same story - you really can't help but stop constantly and abuse your camera.

This is a Kea, the delinquent teenagers of the parrot world and found only in forested and alpine regions regions of the South Island of New Zealand.

These little shits are hilarious to watch. They have a very inquisitive nature, and if it's shiny or semi-fascinating then they'll 'investigate' further. More often than not those shiny and fascinating things are cars. They'll tear off windscreen wipers, demolish window seals, bust aerials, and when they're done 'investigating' they'll fly over to the next car hahaha!

This one was so determined to tear this car to bits that it carried on even as these people drove off down the road hahaha awesome!

A lot of people feed Kea (which they shouldn't - what we eat really isn't good for them), so they have little fear of humans and in fact will often boldly approach us (which really freaks outs the tourists but in reality they're harmless, unless you're an unattended car).

And this is the bloody steep Homer Tunnel, opened in 1954. It is 1,207 metres of dripping water and near-total darkness (apart from my headlights, and camera flash).

We eventually arrived in Milford, which has an abundance of sand flies (and those little bastards bite) but absolutely nothing in the way of facilities apart from this camping ground and a restaurant and bar which is a very good thing (more on that tomorrow), unless you weren't aware of that fact. We (I) knew the score but someone did rock up to reception while we were checking in and asked whether they had any vacancies, to which she was told no. She then asked where the next nearest accommodation was, to which she was told 120km away in Te Anau hehe. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail ;) That's our behemoth of a tent on the right there - much fun was had fitting that sucker amongst the trees.

Anyway, if there's one thing more gobsmackingly stunning than the road we came in on then it's Milford Sound. Get your hopes up and check back tomorrow.

This morning we woke to pissing rain which didn't let up until about mid-afternoon. We had planned to do a couple walks in the area but instead decided to save our (dry) clothes and petrol and catch up on sleep hehe. This is our camp ground by the way - location, location, location.

By late afternoon we were basking in sun, and so hit the road again for the short drive to Milford Sound - the main reason everybody comes here.

Yesterday I banged on about the awesome 120km road from Te Anau to Milford. Well this is where it finally ends...

...the incredible Milford Sound, the most easily accessible of several amazing fiords in the southwest of New Zealand. This has been judged the world's top travel destination in a 2008 international survey, and  is acclaimed as New Zealand's most famous tourist destination. Milford Sound runs 15km inland from the Tasman Sea, and is surrounded by sheer rock faces that rise 1,200 metres or more on either side. Seals, penguins, and dolphins frequent the waters, and whales can sometimes be seen also. With a mean annual rainfall of 6,813mm (268in) on 182 days a year, Milford Sound  is known as the wettest inhabited place in New Zealand and one of the wettest in the world. Regardless, the beauty of this landscape draws thousands of visitors each day, with up to a million visitors in total per year.

In the distance there is Mitre Peak, standing at 1,692m high. Of those million yearly visitors, some 14,000 arrive by foot via the 53km Milford Track - often described as one of the finest in the world. Many more like us drive up from Te Anau, but most visitors rock up on the multitude of tour buses before piling onto cruise boats bound for the fiord.

The forests clinging to the sheer rocky cliffs that surround Milford occasionally relinquish their hold and cause a 'tree avalanche' into the water below hehe - too bad if your cruise ship happens to be under them at the time.

As for Milford itself, this is it in a nutshell. That building is a restaurant and bar, elsewhere is the cruise terminal and car park, and that's it! In other words, this place has virtually zero commercial presence which in my opinion is a great thing. Too many unique locations around the world have been exploited by the tourism industry which really takes away from their natural appeal. As yet, Milford remains off the radar although that may be something to do with New Zealand regulation preventing such an invasion of tacky tourist infrastructure.

View from the other side of the water. Very few places in the world that I've visited come close to this - Norway, Austria and Switzerland are some examples. Tomorrow we head back to Wanaka for a night which we briefly stopped in at while we were in Queenstown, before heading to the South Island's West Coast to see some huge-ass glaciers!

This is the valley at the end of the Homer Tunnel that leads through to Milford. How's that for a road?! It's great fun going down but the car was smelling a bit hot on the way back up.

Anyway, we left Milford and the sand flies this morning, took the gorgeous road back out of there, and headed back towards Wanaka for the night before heading to Fox and Franz Josef glaciers tomorrow.

On the way we stopped here just outside of Queenstown. This is overlooking the Kawarau River, and the main reason folk come here is...

...to jump off this bridge hehe. This is the Kawarau Bridge Bungy - the world's first commercial bungy jumping site which opened back in 1988 (and they maintain it has a 100% safety record). At 43 metres high it's rather tame compared to some of the others these days, but nonetheless if heights aren't your thing then it'll still be great fun ;)

Some folk dive off the bridge head-first, others (like this guy) adopt the retarded Superman style. Video here of a guy that took the Olympic Dive method and lost his shoe in the process hehe.

A few idiots opt for the stand-and-deliver approach, which I'd have to recommend against. When that piece of elastic strapped to your feet becomes taut, you get flicked upside-down rather suddenly and awkwardly if you take this approach and it doesn't look pretty. I'd love to have a crack at this, but at $180 a pop plus another $45 for photos and video it isn't the act that puts me off.

After our overnight pit stop in Wanaka we were back on the road again this afternoon, and soon passed what has become a much more common sight on the open road than when I lived here. Good to see! Anyway, today we were headed for Franz Josef glacier on the West Coast, or at least that was the plan.

Our first stop of the day was Lake Hawea, not far outside of Wanaka.

The lake is about 35km long and has a maximum depth of almost 400 metres, but who gives a shit. It's a bloody nice lake, as they all seem to be in this area.

We spent the whole day following this section of State Highway 6, and I'm pretty sure this is the first time I'd ever come this way before.

A short while later we entered Mt. Aspiring National Park (I assume that's Mt Aspiring in the distance there still covered in snow). The scenery to this point had been typically impressive of New Zealand, but from here it became nothing short of spectacular!

The park sits at the southern end of the Southern Alps mountain range and covers 3,555 square kilometres. Before long we stopped for our second (unplanned) stop - a 30-minute trail through the forest.

And this is where it led us: the so-called "Blue Pools" which derive their name from the distinctive blue colour of the clear, snow-fed, icy cold water.

The water is much deeper than it looks (folk were diving head-first into it), and despite appearances all the rocks on the right there are submerged in at least a foot of running water.

Snow-fed and icy-cold - didn't stop these idiots though hehe.

I gotta be honest, I never knew how beautiful my country really was until I left it, and then returned with a more worldly pair of eyes.

Back on the road and now along the Haast Pass, still a long way from our planned destination for the day.

Be that as it may we made yet another unplanned trip into the forest hehe, this time to Thunder Creek Falls - a narrow 28-metre waterfall.

While at the falls it was obvious we weren't going to make it to the glaciers tonight, and so we came up with a plan B.

We continued to follow SH6 through more South Island goodness until it reached...

...here - Haast, and this is pretty much all there is to it hehe. This is the main road through town. It curves around to the right, goes for another few hundred metres, and then meets SH6 again. I couldn't imagine living here but it's a nice peaceful stop for the night. We're still some 150km from the glaciers. As with the road to Milford Sound it's not the traffic that delays you, it's the scenery!