Doubtful Sound

Against all our expectations, as we took the bus from Christchurch to Queenstown the sun came out. On the way we got a brilliant view of Mt Cook, which at 3755m is the highest peak in Australasia, soaring above Lake Pukaki.

Queenstown has a pretty setting by a lake and has a reputation as a bit of a party town, with lots of young English people drinking themselves comatose. We spent the first night in an eight bed dormitory at the YHA hostel and the heavy snoring of three of our inebriated room mates as well as the sounds of a drunken fight coming from downstairs ensured that we had a truly terrible nights sleep.

The next day we walked up the hill beside the town and watched all the paragliders floating down. It's possible to try out practically every adventure sport that you can think of in Queenstown but as it costs lots of money and I'm afraid of heights anyway, we decided instead to take a bus on to Te Anau in Fiordland National Park to walk the 60km Kepler track.

Having learnt from the back breaking load that we carted around Torres del Paine National Park in Chile we started off down the Kepler track with relatively light packs.

The first day of the walk was sunny and the path lead around Lake Te Anau through the woods to Brod Bay. From Brod Bay we followed the track on a steep climb up through the forest and past some limestone cliffs to the top of the tree line. We then walked up across scrub land until we reached Luxmoore hut where we were spending the night. There were beautiful views from Luxmoore hut over Lake Te Anau and the South Fiord.

The second day of the walk was undoubtedly the most dramatic as we walked for four hours along a ridge surrounded by mountains with stunning views of the South Fiord. As the day went on it became clear that it was going to rain quite heavily and after a 1000m descent through woodland we made it to Iris Burn hut just as it started to pour. The hut was surrounded by lots of bird life and we could hear Kiwi birds calling during the night.

At dawn on the third day we were woken up by Keas screeching. The world's only Alpine parrot Keas look extremely cute but have a reputation for stealing hiking boots and just about anything else that they can find.

It rained pretty much the whole day as we walked through the forest and around Lake Manapouri to the road at Rainbow reach. The forest along the Kepler track is temperate rain forest, bursting at the seams with vegetation, and actually looked very pretty with the ferns and moss glistening in the rain. Still by the end of the day we had pretty much had enough of the rain and once we reached to the road we gladly took up the offer of three Swiss backpackers to drive us back to town in their camper van!

Wanting to get a closer look at a fiord before leaving Fiordland national park we decided to splash out on an overnight cruise on Doubtful Sound. The weather was very cloudy but in some ways that actually added to the dramatic and moody scenery along the fiord. Highlights were watching a pod of bottlenosed dolphins swimming, taking a kayaking trip and being fed lots of tasty food. We also saw New Zealand fur seals and some blue penguins, which briefly whizzed past our boat in a group.

Currently we are in Mount Cook national park, though Mount Cook itself is buried in the clouds. The plan, if the weather cheers up is to do some more walking before catching our flight to Melbourne on Monday.