We Flatts have been known to drive around a bunch on our family adventures. It is not uncommon for our whole adventure to be the journey and not the destination. When we do this type of trip, we reference a 'Pivot Point'. That puts the focus on the journey and not the destination. As a result, our family has become desensitized to sitting in the car (or RV) for long periods of time as we move from one thing to another. But sometimes the adventure is all about the destination. In this case, the destination is New Zealand. I will say for such a little country, about the sizer of the eastern seaboard of the US, there really isn't a way to go directly from one place to another. It must be all these snow-caped mountains that someone put in the way. So for today's mini-adventure our daily pivot point was Milford Sound, on the west coast of the southern island. I have included a map so you can see the most direct route.

We headed out of the apartment fairly early and set our GPS to Te Anau. The plan was to get lunch and petrol at approximately the half way point to Milford Sound. I felt I was really getting the hang of the driving thing and was able to pretty much maintain the 100kph speed limit the whole time. We were warned by Lee, our Hertz rental guy, there is zero tolerance for speeding. The good news is you really feel like you are zipping along when doing 100kph (62mph) because the roads are narrow and winding. We made pretty good time, keeping the Remarkables Mountain Range on our right, and arrived at the Sandfly Cafe in just a few hours. The little town of Te Anau is quite lovely and the folks at Sandfly prepared us a very nice lunch. Surprise, surprise, Audrey had pancakes. That kid is going to turn into a pancake one day. Re-fit and re-fueled we head down the next leg our our journey to Fiordlands National Park and the Milford Sound.

Along the path we saw several very interesting things. The first stop was at Mirror Lake. Even though the wind was blowing a little bit and some damn ducks kept swimming around, it was easy to see how the little bodies of water got their name. It was also interesting to find out there is a species of freshwater eel that live in the New Zealand that can grow up to 8 feet long. That would be a real shocker if you were in the water and didn't know they existed. Next we had an opportunity to hop out of the car and run through the snow as we wait for the oncoming traffic at the one-lane Homer Tunnel to make it through.

Less of a complaint and more of an observation, even though there was a map of the cool stuff to see along the path, they weren't very well marked on the road. I think we missed some of our our secondary stops because we just didn't see a sign.

One of the primary purposes of this trip was to see many unusual and unique animals. The Wild Kea, or forrest parrot, was on the list for sure. We were able to check that little guy off the list in the parking lot of our next stop, The Chasm. A short walk into the woods brought us a rushing waterfall. It was loud and amazing how much water was actually tumbling down the rocks. We were very careful to stay on the well marked path and behind the barriers.

We eventually reached the end of the road, literally, at Milford Sound. Melissa did have a little bit of a concern they might close the Homer Tunnel and strand us on the wrong side of the mountain so we didn't have a lot of time to stay at the sound. There is a breathtaking waterfall right above the sound and I think we got some good pictures. With all the boxes checked, we pivoted and headed back to home-base. The drive back was fairly uneventful except one event. On the road back this big fat rabbit was hopping across the road from left to right (we drive on the left, mostly). I am a pretty good judge of distance and it looked like the little guy had made it past the 1/2 way point and was going to be just fine. Just then, in a moment of self doubt, he turned a 180 and attempted to commit suicide by minivan. Every driving instructor will tell you, 'fluffy gets it' in this situation. But, due to my lightning quick reflexes in combination with the highly tuned performance of the base model Toyota minivan, I was able to minimally adjust our vector and avert the potential crisis. Fluffy Lives!