After we left Queenstown we headed down to Te Anau which is the base in Fiordland for visiting the Fjords in the area (which they call “Sounds”). We went for a walk around Lake Te Anau then stayed in a proper campsite there, charged things up and had a shower (luxury!).

The following day we drove to Manipouri to catch our Doubtful Sound cruise. Doubtful is a little inaccessible - you take a boat across Lake Manipouri, which is in itself pretty impressive and takes about 45 minutes. That docks at the West Arm of the lake, where the hydroelectric power station is. From there a coach takes you over the Wilmot Pass road which was constructed for the power station and goes to Deep Cove on the sound.

There we got on another boat and took a 3 hour cruise to the other end of the sound and back. The sound itself is massive - very impressive subtropical rainforest and stunning mountains. Unfortunately we didn’t see much in the way of wildlife other than a few birds.

On return to West Arm we took a brief tour of the power station then headed back to Manapouri. We drove back to Te Anau then took the Milford road north to the first DOC campsite (Henry Creek) where we stayed the night.

The next day we spent driving up to Milford Sound, stopping off for the view quite often and doing a few short walks along the way, including the Lake Gunn nature trail and Lake Marian waterfalls. We booked our tour with Mitre Peak at the harbour on Milford, then on their advice just camped in the car park for the night! We also did another couple of short walks.

The next morning at around 10am we set off for our 2 hour cruise. Milford is much more steep sided than Doubtful, giving it a striking appearance. It also had more waterfalls while we were there, and the boat went much closer to them. We saw a fur seal on the way out, a couple more on the way back in and then a whole pod of dolphins! They swam around us for a while, and showed off for the camera a bit, but it was hard to get any pictures for all the other people trying to do the same! With the exception of the wildlife though (which we’re told we were unlucky for on Doubtful) we both thought Doubtful was a better trip - but then usually it costs more than twice the amount!

After leaving Milford we headed back south to Te Anau, stopping at some sights we skipped on the way up including the Chasm (nice waterfalls) and Mirror Lakes. From Te Anau we then headed back towards Queenstown, stopping about 40km from it at a really secluded picnic spot right by a lake for the night.

Edit: Apparently its spelt “Fiordland” because they can’t spell here.