Rudely awoken by the alarms this morning at 6.30. A quick shower and dressed, as breakfast (full English) was at 7.00 whilst the boat left the shelter of Harrison Cove to travel all the way up Milford Sound and out to the Tasman Sea (this is the second roughest ocean in the world – great!). We were very lucky (well I was) as it was fairly calm and no incidents to report.  We watched the sun come up over the mountain and saw a pod of dolphins, amazing to see them jumping in front of a cruise ship and also some seals.  God knows what the temperature was but we were freezing on the deck, so we had to keep going indoors to warm up. 

At 9.15 we arrived back at the dock and had the mile walk back to Mabel.  We were on the road just before 10 and it only took 2 hours to get to Te Anau (so much quicker without all the stops). The sun was now breaking through, the sky clear and the temperature steadily rising. As the pies were so nice yesterday, we stopped for another one each and ate them in the bird sanctuary just up the road.

We were then on our way again by 1.00. Unfortunately the way my itinerary worked, today was going to involve a lot of driving over roads we had already travelled but that couldn’t be helped. Mabel got another top up at Mossburn and we decided to go straight to our camp site, as opposed to stopping anywhere, although it was still a good few hours away.

We rolled up at The River Rock Estate at 4.15. This is quite an unusual camp site – it’s set on a vineyard, they only allow 2 motorhomes and provide only a toilet (best one to date though- it’s as if it’s in someone’s house!) and electric.

Although the guy wasn’t that welcoming on arrival, he said they did complimentary wine tasting at 5.00 for guests if we wanted to come along. Oh boy, 90 minutes later, we had tasted 11 wines and 3 ports and met some Aussies and Americans and were quite merry (good job neither of us drink wine). 

They also had hot tubs here so I had prebooked an outdoor one yesterday but didn’t realise that it includes a bottle of wine (well we now knew which one to have) cheese and chocolates for a 90 minute session.

Dave quickly knocked up a chicken and pasta dish prior to our session.

Wow, in the most amazing little private area, we sat in our beautifully warm hot tub, looking at the sun go down behind the mountains, the timing was perfect, whilst enjoying all the goodies they had provided. 

Total distance today 346 kms (215 miles)