Everyone is friendly in NZ... even the police

We actually got to sleep in today but we still felt rushed.  We checked out of the hotel at 11 and drove into town to get some breakfast at a place called Motogrill.  After a breakfast of muesli and porridge (better than it sounds) and great coffee we started our journey to Fiordland (Milford Sound Area).

The scenery was beautiful and the drive was fun and twisty.  The drive is somewhat similar to the 101 North of San Francisco but there are no guardrails or warning signs.

Just outside of Queenstown

A different view of the lake

Snowcaps!

After about 45 minutes, we arrived at Glenorchy... the exact opposite direction we wanted to go.  And it's a dead end basically because the only way out is back the way you came.  Ugggggh.  At least the scenery was nice.

So we turned around and headed back to Queenstown and an hour and a half after we started our trip we were finally headed the right direction.

The road was nice and passed through a lot of farmland and sheep were everywhere!

Here's just a few sheep along the way

Gives "Share the Road" a new meaning

The roads were pretty winding but mostly empty so Bernard kept up a rapid pace.  We passed through Te Anau where we will be staying tomorrow night.  Milford Sound was about 120km from Te Anau so it was only going to take another hour and a half to get there.  For some reason, the signs said allow two hours... I don't think so!

Joke's on Bernard

After a nice conversation with the local police who let Bernard know that this stretch of road was the most dangerous road in NZ and that he just came from a crash (which we saw the aftermath of later), he handed Bernard this NZ$120 souvenir.  Bernard kept to the 100km/h speed limit after that and we arrived at Milford Sound around 5:30.

Coming into Milford at 100km/h exactly, officer

We checked into the campsite and went into "town" to the only restaurant, Blue Duck.  The food was good and we heard a great band who the bartender told us was a local band called, Fly My Pretties.  We'll definitely be looking for their music on iTunes.

Now we are sitting in the campground lounge because we are trying to escape the sand flies.  They absolutely swarmed us as we were setting up our tent and these little bastards bite!  Word has it they go away after dark so we're waiting for the sun to go down.  It is now getting to be dusk at 9:45p so we might be safe.  Of course, the mosquitoes come out when it's dark...

Tomorrow we get picked up at 7:15 am for our kayak trip around Milford Sound.