⛰️ Te Anau & Wanaka
We made it to the west coast. Well… sort of. Te Anau sits right by Fiordland National Park—you can’t really get much closer—but to reach the actual coast, you still have to drive about two hours through stunning scenery.
The night we arrived, it poured with rain. The next morning, we set off for Milford Sound. All that rainwater had turned the mountains into one giant waterfall factory, with little cascades everywhere along the road. Over and over we’d round a corner and just go, “Wow!!” It’s a magical place.
To avoid the buses and crowds that roll in later, we booked an early cruise through Milford Sound. We went with Mitrepeak—they run smaller boats than some of the other companies, which makes the whole experience feel more intimate. Everything’s also a bit more relaxed here, so when we arrived and showed our tickets, the lady behind the counter said, “Your tour is scheduled for tomorrow.” My German brain immediately started spiraling at the thought of another 5 AM start and doing the whole drive again… but then she smiled and said, “I’ll just rebook you for today, if that’s alright with you?” So we got to hop on and cruise around Milford Sound after all.
On the way back to the car, we took a look at the helicopter tours. Neither of us had ever flown in a helicopter before, and aside from a three-day hike, it was basically our only chance to see Sutherland Falls. So we went for it. The helicopter gave us incredible views over the landscape and even landed near Lake Quill in the mountains—the lake that feeds Sutherland Falls, the highest waterfall in New Zealand.
We don't have a good picture of the Waterfall though, we were busy staring out of the windows. 👀
On our way back, we made stop on several different locations. For example the Chasm Walk, Monkey Creek, Lake Gunn and the Mirror Lake. The local Kea Bird was present on multiple parking lots in the area, probably because people are throwing them food, even thought it's written that they should not. I was able to take multiple underexposed and blurry pictures of the bird. After that day I watched many youtube videos about how to setup a camera correctly. Better 7 years later than never I guess.
The Mirror Lake was already a bit blurry, due to woken animals and wind, but you get the idea here.
The next days were more rainy and we used the time to recharge and dined through all the overrated and overbooked restaurants in Te Anau. On our short journey to Lake Manapouri, we had a background of misty mountains.
After Te Anau and Milford Sound, we headed into the direction of Wanaka, or at least into that area. Close by is Queenstown, near the Lake Wakatipu, Arrowtown, Jack's Point and Glenorchy.
Jack's Point is the first city we passed by on our way. It's a city within an incredible valley, surrounded by mountains, directly on a lake. It's a luxury place to live, with a golf court and expensive cafe's where a beer cost 18€.
New Zealand is basically Middle Earth, you can find filming spots for Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit all over New Zealand. We used this map (reddit source) to navigate around and stop at the movie locations. Many times we would just drive through scenic mountains and fields and try to figure out if that's really it. Our next stop led us to Arrowtown, where can find two Lord of the Ring locations.
1) The Fellowship starting scene where Isildur dies and loses the ring to the river
2) Frodo when he get's rescued by Arwen from the River
Aften you need to have a lot of imagination and a bit of faith that these places are really the movie location. It's more than 25 years ago that they shot these scenes and we didn't always know right away which scenes should it be to get the right angle. 📐
The region also has a lot of farms for wheat, fruits, wine and nuts. That's when my hay fever allergy kicked in like never before. It's a common allergy in New Zealand (about 25% of the people here have it), and it seems to be very strong here. We got some strong medication in the pharmacy and after a few days it got better.
Queenstown has a lot to offer as well, we went to the Queenstown Gardens, from where you have access to the Lake Wakatipu.
On the way to Glenorchy was another movie location, it's the place where Sam explains potatoes to Gollum. "Potatoes? Boil em, mash em, stick em in a stew!".
But also other nice lookouts are on the way, like this view on the north part of Lake Wakatipu and the street leading to Glenorchy.
Above Glenorchy are many movie locations, the part where Isengard was located and the forest Lothlorien, the home of the Galadhrim elves and Galadriel.
This is somewhat close to where Gandalf was chasing to Isengard, just to get captured by Saruman.
On our way back, a herd of Uruk-hai – I mean – Sheep was blocking our way. The shepherd encouraged us to "drive positively" through the herd. "You've even driven through a herd of sheep?", he asked. Well we took the opportunity. We also have a video of it.
And these are some other locations we visited in that region.
That's it in these parts! The next route will actually bring us to the west coast, which we will drive up until we arrive in Picton and take a ferry to the north island.