February 11, 2026
The final day of our tour included a morning boat ride in Milford Sound followed by a bus ride back to Te Anau. In the early morning it was still dripping rain and the clouds had not cleared. For a brief moment I managed to see one tiny spot at the top of Mitre Peak uncovered by clouds.
We had a final breakfast with the group and also made another round of sandwiches to take with us on the bus for lunch. Then we checked out of our rooms and took the short bus ride back to the harbor for our boat trip on Milford Sound.
I was first in line to get on the boat, and I headed straight to the top deck to snag a good viewing spot at the front. We were on the large Real NZ boat, so there was plenty of room to move around. At the beginning there were only a few others on the top deck.
We had a nice view of Bowen Falls and many other intermittent waterfalls on the journey.
The weather was still very drippy with rain. We reached Seal Point, and it started to rain harder just as I was trying to take a video of the one fur seal that we saw. So far my wildlife score for this entire New Zealand trip is 1: for this fur seal. (But don't worry, much more is to come in a few days!)
The rain finally stopped after we passed Seal Point, and the weather progressively got nicer.
The boat turned around for the return trip as it approached the opening to the Tasman Sea. We experienced some rocking with the waves coming in from the sea.
We had some interesting lighting as the sun tried to break through the clouds.
We stopped at Stirling Falls, where the boat came as close as possible to the falls and let people get wet from the spray if they desired. I was already wet but chose to stay on the top deck for photos and videos.
After we left the falls, the weather improved rapidly and we finally had large patches of blue sky.
We passed close to Bowen falls before returning to the harbor.
And at the very end we had a pretty good, but not perfect, view of Mitre Peak.
This was our third boat ride on Milford Sound, and all three were different: the first trip in 2019 was cloudy with no rain and very few waterfalls due to little previous rain. The second trip in 2023 we had clear blue sky with very few clouds, great views of the peaks, but again few waterfalls due to little previous rain. On this third trip we had the entire mix of weather conditions starting with drizzle, then rain, and then clearing with blue sky at the end. And this trip won the prize for the most waterfalls.
After the cruise we boarded the bus for the 90-minute trip back to Te Anau.
I took many photos from the bus window, but most are not very good due to the reflection of my phone on the window. Below are a couple of the good ones.
We returned to the Alpine Centre at Te Anau shortly before 1 pm, where we said goodbye to our guides and the others that were continuing on the bus to Queenstown. Graham drove us back to the Te Anau Lakeview Holiday Park where we picked up our stored car and luggage. And we bid farewell to Graham as our trip plans diverged at this point. We will be meeting him again next month to experience the geysers around Rotorua on the North Island.
Since it was too early to check into our motel, Heinrich and I drove to the Te Anau bird sanctuary, and we found a picnic table to eat our sandwiches for lunch. The table was near the Antipodes Parakeets enclosure, and we watched the workers set up new tree branches inside the enclosure for the parakeets to nibble on the leaves.
One of the workers looked familiar to me, and I called out to her: did you by any chance work here in 2019? She responded yes! It was the same person who had given us a tour of the bird sanctuary, and I had taken an extended video of her feeding the Takahe and explaining their behavior. Sadly those tours are no longer given due to lack of staffing.
I also asked her how the newborn Takahe chick was doing. And sadly we found out that the chick had died shortly after birth. She was hopeful that the pair would breed again soon.
We finished our lunch and then drove over to the Alpine View Motel to check in. We had a one bedroom apartment with a kitchenette. The motel was closer to downtown Te Anau and a 2-block walk to the lake.
Next we went shopping at the Fresh Choice supermarket to stock up on a new round of food for a few days.
Before dinner I took a short walk around the area. The afternoon weather was sunny, quite warm and not windy. It definitely felt like summer. I had a nice walk near the lakeshore.
Some pretty flower gardens were on the grounds of the motel.
The motel had an outdoor grill, and we made use of it to fix a nice steak dinner.
