Te Anau

I havnt got a single photo of Invercargill! Invercargill doesnt deserve to have its photo taken. I am sure that if you tried to find a postcard from Invercargill you would spent a lot of time searching - then ending up buying a postcard with a photo of a kiwi. The photo above is taken ca 50km drive from Invercargill. Thats when things worthy of photographing pops up. Its called Monkey Island, but the reason is beyond me. I walked to the top and down on the opposite side of it and the only wildlife I could see was a wasp and some spiders. The view from Monkey Island is great. Again - worthy of a photo. Thats two more than Invercargill, and this is just a random stop on the Southern Scenic Route. Someone had made the effort of building steps on both sides of Monkey Island - leading up to a viewpoint on top. 60km from Invercargill is McCrackens Rest. The name - again - I have no explanation for, but a really nice view. Someone had been nice enough to put of a signpost so that you could find out how far away different stops are. As I said - really nice view :) When I got to Manapouri the first thing I did was to find out where I was supposed to meet up Sunday morning. Since Manapouri is the size of a pea, that didnt take me too long. Afterwards I drove my car down to a beach. Really nice - made me smile! I got my clothes off, bikini on - time to do some tanning! :) Pink is a tan that takes lot of time to get right! Im still more on the white side than pink, so happy whenever I can get some sunshine. And yes - I did put sunlotion on. Spf 30! When I got to Te Anau I soon discovered it was a town I could like. Small in size, with a HUGE lake. Really - the lake is huge. Probably as big as all of Voss county! They also have some cool sights around their lake. Glowworm cave is one of them. After having a couple of sandwiches with venisonsalami, I put some warm clothes in a bag and walked down to the beach/pier. A ticket to see the Glowworm caves was 63$! Or, 56,70 if you are a YHA member, so I got 6,30 back after running up to the hostel for my membercard!

The trip was worth the money! It started with a cruise over to the Cave-visitor senter. Then we got split into smaller groups and started walking through the caves with our guide. After a while we got to a small landing - and after being asked to be completely quiet we got onto a small boat in halfdarkness. When everybody was in the boat, (This was also the perfect timing of someone letting go of a silent but horriblesmelling fart. I nearly passed out breathing it in!) our guide turned out the last of lights and dragged us further into the cave. It was really cool sitting in complete stillness and darkness and discovering more and more glowworm above our heads and on the walls. It was so many of them in the cave grotto that I thought someone had a light on! Our guide led the boat back to the landing and we walked back through the cave to the normalworld. Cool experience! Unfortunately - I wasnt allowed to take any photos, but I have on of myself on Te Anau beach while waiting for the boat to arrive :) Sunday was an early start again :) Thats two in a row getting up before the sun! Good on me! Kayaking on the Doubtful Sound is definitly worth getting up for! It started with a cruise across Lake Manapouri. Not as big as Lake Te Anau, but still WAY bigger than Vangsvatnet! It actually took 40minutes! We got onto dry land next to a huge powerstation. Or actually - just the electricity being led up and off to different cities. The powerstation is under the mountainpass we drove over to get to the Doubtful Sound! Yeah, they built a powerstation under a mountain! Why not? Alot of people have asked me today why Im paying to go kayaking in the NZfjords when Norway have fjords as well. The answer is simple - I wanted to check out if they were as similar as it seemed from photos. And they really are! They are beautiful, big and peaceful. There is one difference though - norwegian fjords got people living along then, roads running on the sides of them and ferries crossing them all day. The New Zealand Fjords and surrounding mountains are NOMANSLAND. Im serious! Take out a map of New Zealand and check it out. The bottomleft part of New Zealand have NO roads and NO towns. Its dead. No-one have ever considered trying to live there. Why should they? They have two perfectly fine islands without steep mountains and deep fjords. They can keep it a pricy touristattraction! :) We had a superb day! Not rain at all - and that is really uncommon for a place that have over 200 rainy days each year. And it doesnt really rain or snow here during winter! Home away from home! Funny how I can be on the opposite side of earth and find something that could have been an hour away from my house! LOVE IT