1. On boat cruises
2. In the café at Milford
3. At the Chasm
4 The Homer tunnel
5. The Divide, the exit/entrance to the Routeburn, Greenstone and Caples tracks and Key Summit.
6. Mirror Lakes, every tour bus stops there
7. At the Knobs flat - a big flat open valley floor with views of the mountains and also because its a LOTR filming location, possibly Minas Tirith - the white city.
Top places not to find tourists, or not many:
1. Lake Mistletoe, no one at all, a nice little walk to a lake, there's a picnic table, you can sit there in peace.
2. Lake Marian, 1km down the Hollyford track road which is unsealed.
3. Te Anau waterfront to Upukerora River
4. Fraser Beach to Pearl Habour walk at Manapouri
Ok so this list goes a bit further afield than Milford but if you're going to Milford by road you have to go through Te Anau anyway.
Lake Marian- First of all there is an excellent board walk next to the Marian waterfalls - there are some tourists here, of course its only a 20 min return walk to the falls and back. But beyond the falls - that's where it gets real man. The neat flat tourist trail turns into a tramping track which is mostly unformed track with direction markers on trees. The track goes up, its rocky and rooty and then its gets boggy and turns into a scramble in some sections, gets a bit more boggy and at the top it opens into a pleasant green flat path, and you know you're somewhere special, the track finishes at an alpine lake in a hanging valley surrounded by the mountains. The grass and scattered rocks on the ground continued under the waters surface, which made it look magical and fairy tale like, clearly the water level isn't always this high. The water was totally clear and pure, I drank some because I hadn't taken any provisions with me and its a 3h return trip. I just had to look at it for a while.
Would you look at that!:
My Brashers had fallen apart a bit earlier, the sole had become unstuck so I had to use my trainers for the hike, they were totally wet by the end of it but that's ok, at least I had some dry shoes to change back into after the walk. I only got to 2 on that list today but that's good enough, I wasn't in the mood for people so didn't go anywhere else, plus I suddenly got very tired on the way back so had a nap back at the hotel.
The next day I fixed my Brashers some shoe fix glue, but have to leave them a day to set and my trainers were still wet from the walk so I put them under the car to dry out so as not to stink the car out, foot ware options for walking were limited now so having a rest day.
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| Brasher rescue |
Except I didn't have a rest day because I got bored and it was a nice day, I still had some my sandals so I did no 3 on the list -waterfront walk at Te Anau. Walking from the hotel along the waterfront past the main street, to the harbour and then to a nice open field bit. From this point there is a good view of the Kepler track across the water. I sat down at various points to read my book in the sun.
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