Photos from a winter trip to Queenstown and Milford Sound
When packing for a holiday, I always run into the exact same dilemma: do I bring a small camera for convenience, or lug along my full mirrorless setup so I don't regret missing the shot? In the end, the bigger gear always wins - inconvenience seems a small price to pay.
For this year’s winter trip, we flew into Queenstown before driving further south to base ourselves in Te Anau for a couple of nights. We felt it made more sense as a launchpad for Milford Sound than attempting a mammoth day trip from Queenstown.
On the way, we detoured to Lake Mavora and hit the jackpot with perfect weather. For me it ranks right alongside Mount Sunday as one of the most serene places I’ve ever visited. No traffic, no crowds (in fact, not another soul in sight the day we were there), no distractions. You haven’t experienced tranquility until you’ve been somewhere like this where silence itself becomes a sound. Fans of The Lord of the Rings might recognise it as the backdrop for some of the final scenes in The Fellowship of the Ring. We had planned a peaceful lakeside picnic, but ended up eating in the car to escape a relentless swarm of hungry midges which appeared when we unwrapped our sandwiches!
We were equally fortunate with the conditions for our drive out to Milford Sound - a place famous for being one of the wettest spots on earth. The Milford Road is genuinely unlike anything else, with constant jaw-dropping sights around every single bend in the road. We also encountered plenty of cheeky kea who were far too keen on testing the rubber seals on our car. Having missed out on seeing them in Arthur’s Pass the previous year, I was thrilled to finally make their acquaintance.
To wrap up the trip, we squeezed in an early morning visit to Moke Lake near Queenstown. It was bitterly cold, but the lake was dead calm, completely deserted and stunning enough to forgive the temperature. I’d love to head back another time when it's warmer to do the full walking track around the perimeter.
All in all, another incredible trip to the South Island. If I lived down there permanently, my hard drives would be overflowing with landscape shots and I'd never be able to leave the house without a camera in hand.
