When we stopped for morning coffee at the Sand Fly Cafe, I spotted this vehicle in the parking lot.
Apparently this van hire firm has worldwide locations, though their decorated vehicles are most often spotted in New Zealand.
The view from the cafe...
If I had a cafe, even in the middle of sandfly land (as this one was), I'm not sure I would have chosen that name. Sandflies were one thing in New Zealand I would not miss! I'm with Captain Cook here.
And her plan worked!!
These were in the Milford Sound visitor center by the way...
We drove up into the mountains...
Finally saw a kea! This one was marching around a small car park on the side of the road where several families had parked their RVs and were having a cookout.
Note the little spot of red on his back. I tried so hard to get a shot of him flying, when all his spectacular red feathers were in view, but it proved impossible. You can see what I'm talking about on the
Kea Conservation Trust page.
Here he has nabbed some grub:
Here he is about to hop into the RV...
He was foiled in his attempt to enter the RV the first time, but the second time he came out triumphantly with this paper plate. It had a little bit of rice on it, which he inhaled before I manageed to take the plate away. (He squawked at me for spoiling his fun.)
And after that he became an even less willing subject. Here he stomps away...
Next we boarded a huge boat that cruised around Milford Sound. We saw more Fjordland Crested Penguins.
Video is kind of shaky but you can see more here:
It was extremely misty!
The sound is so wide and grand that it was difficult to capture in a photo frame. This was near the end (open water) where we turned around.
Sleeping sea lions on the rocks
Our boat went right up to the waterfall too. It was very cold out but some passengers went out on deck to get soaked.
As you can see here:
