To Te Anau

I've always wanted to trek through the infamous Milford Sounds but because of our lack of time, we thought we would entirely skip it altogether and do it properly when we have more time. So instead, we decided to head to Te Anau and take a 3 hour cruise into one of their many fjords. The Te Anau lake is the largest lake in the South Island, second to Lake Taupo in the whole of New Zealand. As famous as Milford Sound is, its size does not even compare to the sounds found in Lake Te Anau.
We drove from Dunedin to Te Anau, a cruisy 4 and a bit hour drive.

We drove through Gore. It is notorious for being the "shit hole" city.

We got into Te Anau around 8pm and had dinner at Cafe La Dolce Vita. We looked at nearly every restaurant that Te Anau had to offer ( it is a very small town) and were bombarded with pizzarias, bad bad chinese restarants and just old bangers and mash places. When we stumbled upon La Dolce Vita, we read their menu and it was a breath of fresh air. Pork belly, hand made pasta etc. It's hard to get good food when you're on the road and I'm so glad we went there because dinners for the rest of the trip was more for filling up than tastebud options. I had the most amazing hand made fettucine ever, with king prawns and a very simple but delicious sauce. Aaron had the Pork belly but he soon subcummed to food envy when he had a taste of my bouncy fettucine.

We went for a 3 hour cruise around Te Anau and into nearby sounds the next morning. Now there was a huge ship with tinted glass sitting by the docks but boy were we glad we booked with Cruise Te Anau. Cruise Te Anau is run by one man, Peter and he takes a max of 12 people on his small intimate boat to the very breathtaking sounds. Aaron and I were very lucky. We were the only two people booked for the morning cruise. I mean, we had the whole boat to ourselves, we sat on the deck and admired the enormity of our surroundings.

As part of the cruise, Peter docks at the sound and we all go for a short and very easy hike through the forest. The forest floor is bouncy, it is covered in moist moss and the colours are so vibrantly green, you would not believe your eyes.