Monday morning saw us driving off towards Fiordland, the south-eastern part of the South Island. About two thirds of Fiordland is a national park covering 12,120 square kilometres, making it the largest national park in New Zealand and one of the largest in the world.
Our first stop was the town of Gore, which is particularly greedy when it comes to its claims to fame, for it is 'the brown trout fishing capital of the world' and 'the country music capital of New Zealand'. To mark its significance, an equally enormous and ridiculous trout about 10m high resides in the town square.
We had a picnic lunch in the tiny town of Lumsden, before heading off to Lake Manapouri, where we had an hour to walk down to and relax on Fraser's Beach. The sun was out and the scenery was outstanding, making it one of the recent highlights of the trip. There are so many beautiful spots like this around the country, but none seem to be overly busy or exploited.
Our final leg of the day was to Lake Te Anau, and the campsite on its shores where we would stay for the next two nights. As the sun went down, I went to get some pictures and the sunset couldn't have looked better if someone had painted it on.
