Te Anau/Milford Sound

I arrived in Te Anau and met up with Yannick and 2 other people he was on the Milford Track with (who I'd met in Tekapo). I went to pitch my tent at the Lakeside campsite, then we went to Lake Manapouri for a swim, which was actually suprisingly warm.

We came back and went for a walk around Lake Te Anau. Both lakes are stunning.

In the evening we made burgers which were quite good if I say so myself, then met up with Kati (the girl I met whilst hitching through the Catlins). We hung out for a bit down by the lake in the evening which was nice. Unfortunately, the warm weather I had become used was nowhere to be found on my second day in Fiordland. Yannick and I tried to hitch to Milford Sound in the cold and the rain (bad idea) and made it most of the way but decided to turn back when cars stopped heading towards the sound which was dissapointing. However in a way, I'm glad we did because we got a hitch from a couple that lived in Peckham (really close to my house). They were professional travel bloggers and really cool people. Unfortunately we spent the afternoon hiding from the rain in the (very nice) living room in the campsite. Everything to do here is outdoors so it sucks when the weather is bad.

I eventually made it to Milford Sound. I got a hitch there from a German guy called Hanz (which is apparently the German version of Jake). He was also a tourist so we stopped at some fantastic waterfalls along the way. One advantage of the rain is that it makes the waterfalls spectacular!

At Milford the weather was 'horrible' weather but I still thought it was absolutely stunning with such poor visibility. The sound is so dramatic with the low cloud. Also the shitty weather means that most of the tourists hide inside the information centre, meaning that it's much more quiet than I suspect it is usually.

We hung out with Lucas (guy I met in Invercargill) in the evening. He's a fellow mountain biker and a cool guy who's also writing a blog (http://blog.lepski.info/). It would have been nice to have some more sun, but bad weather doesn't hide the beauty of this place. Someone asked me what city in America I was from. Which was suprising! In the evening I played cards with a couple Germans, an Isreali, Sweede, American and Australian. There's quite alot of Israelis, especially soldiers. I'm starting the Kepler track, a 60km hike that I'm doing over 4 days!