Milford Sound is snow good in a camper van!

After a great time in OZ we felt sad to be leaving and slightly unprepared for New Zealand as we hadn't really had time to plan our trip. So with this in the back of our minds we landed in Christchurch late one evening. After a good nights sleep and a quick tour of the city sights we sorted out a small camper van at a fantastic price to be our home over the next few weeks.

As you can see the van resembles a small plumbers van with an extra bit added so that you can stand up inside. It was fitted with all the mod cons.... well a bed, a cooker and a fridge (which we soon found out we wouldn't need as the climate was definitely cold enough!!). So off we go on another road trip! After several minutes driving the van I realised that it had probably seen better days and that the pretty black patterns in my rear view mirror whenever we went over 50km per hour were in-fact oil and smoke billowing out of the exhaust. It only took several days for the radio to break, well stop working anyway, which I felt was a curse from Liz and Meg for slating their Cd's! But the van was amazing, and we were having a great time.

At the end of our first day driving we stayed in central south island (Cromwell) and got ourselves ready for our first night in the van. We did have a heater but didn't think that it would get too cold, so only set it on a very minimum setting. This we would discover was a bit of a mistake as Ellie had to put her thermals on and get in her sleeping bag in the middle of the night (her sleeping bag as well as being under the duvet!) and I couldn't feel my feet the next morning. So vowing never to sleep without the heater on a more sensible setting again we headed for Milford Sound.

During the morning the prior day we had heard a rumour that there was a snow storm heading for the area but nothing had been confirmed. It was however later confirmed when we were driving through the mountain pass that leads to Milford Sound and we were faced with about 2" of snow. We were advised by the guy driving the snow plough that this was just the start and that we should get through the pass before the real stuff came! True to his word it did get worse and by the time we had slowly wound our way up and down the pass there was about 5". It was at this point that they closed the road. This was the only road in and out of the village of Milford, so we were stuck. We then discovered that there was no mains electricity in the village and that we would therefore have NO HEATER!!! This was a very chilly evening that seemed to last for an eternity.

However the next morning we realised that it was all worth it. The previous evening when we had driven into the village visibility was down to about 50 meters so we had not been able to see anything. However with the snow storm past and the sky an amazing blue we were able to see some of the most fantastic scenery in the world. Sailing out into the "sound" (a very large lake created by an ancient glacier) at Milford we were treated to even more amazing views and after about an hour more rain (which would be falling as snow on the mountain pass, we were starting to think that we were going to be stuck here for ages!). Getting back off the boat we were pleased to learn that the roads would be opening again and we could continue with our adventure (after a brief stop to throw snow balls at Ellie and give myself frost bite!)