Dunedin to Milford

View of Dunedin from Tolcarne on Maori hill

February decorations Invercargil

Sailing into the Sterling waterfall Milford

Keeping the camera dry!

Milford sound - actually not a Sound but a Fjord

Entering Milford from the sea

I have to start with a correction. In my recent Dunedin blog I said I had located the house Tolcarne. But when I was leaving my Motel the owner informed me that I had gone to the wrong school - she insisted it was at the Girls school not the boys. She was right, I rushed off up the hill again and found the location. The house itself is no more, but the garden, the hill, the view and the bush are all still there. The site is now a boarding house for the school and must be total five star accommodation with the most stunning panoramic views of the city imaginable. i was welcomed in and invited to take photos and video footage. However this delay made me an hour late for my meeting in Gore with Lindsay and Sarah old friends from Yorkshire who happened to be passing through the same small town on their way to the World Gliding Centre in the McKenzie basin. From Lindsay I got more information about the huge herds of cattle I had been seeing all crammed into single paddocks ( fields) with totally empty fields all around. He says this is all about sophisticated grass management. Each day after milking the herd is turned into a different paddock. Apparently the Rye grass gives maximum nutrition between the 2nd and 3rd leaf stage. If it gets eaten down to the one leaf stage it takes too long to grow back and if it gets to the four leaf stage it is usually left and turned into silage. By rotating the entire herd they keep the grass constantly between the 2 and 3 leaf stage and thus get maximum nutrition from it. This can all be tested and shown in graph form so that the farmers can know exactly the state of their grass every day. Pretty sophisticate stuff, and the resulting milk products including dried milk powders are being marketed in China and the far east. I made a quick visit to Invercargill after Gore and was really amazed at its size. It has spread out for miles along all the incoming roads. But best of all here were the Christmas lights - still up at the end of February. What I find hard to understand is why they need them at all. Christmas here is in mid summer with bright nights so why the dreary British snowflakes and Santas? Connie said that at least at Invercargil there was nothing and no-one to see. She was a social person but clearly had her limits . Now I am in Te Anau after another long drive through rolling hills and open plains, I felt for Connie who did the whole journey on the box seat of a horse drawn carriage. Even she complained a little but could still appreciate the golden tussock. She would really hate what I am doing today. Tired of driving I have booked onto a tourist bus and boat trip to see the wonderful Milford Sound. Although she did visit the sound on board a cruise ship which offered all manner of entertainemnt, dancing, music, picnic, regattas and even a late night firework display with the firing of reverberating cannons set as a spectacle against the dark cliffs, still she said that though the trip was very well organised and though ' everything necessary is provided there is no herding, or abominable guides.' However she felt that the size of the ship and lack of time ashore meant that she did not experience the place as fully as she would have liked. I have to say that although i agree with her sentiments there was a shared experience of place and comraderie that came from our trip today. An in depth experience it was not, but is there another level of experience that is also valid, shared, caring, international and happening within a strict conservation programme. It rained and blew for Connie and it did likewise for us today. I have done this trip previously in perfect weather and I have to say that this was a more vivid experience, there was a greater feeling of the darkness, threat and grandeur than before. daily