Fiordland National Park, NZ

Lake Gunn Campsite

Location: Milford Road, adjacent to SH 94, 78 km north of Te Anau.
Fee: $5.10 adult/night (no booking)
Accessible for smaller vehicles (we drove up in a sleeper van and got in just fine)
Standard Campsite: 10 tent sites, toilets (portable if I remember correctly), barbacue, picnic tables, only stream water available, no showers

This basic campsite is situated along the Te Anau - Milford Highway in Fiordland National Park on the edge of Lake Gunn.  Melita Peak and Consolation Peak form a beautiful backdrop to the lake. We parked our sleeper van here after driving and hiking through Milford Sound earlier in the day. The shore was quiet and serene with just a few other campers about - gorgeous. 

Milford Sound

 Milford Sound is  absolutely majestic. The Tasmanian sea is the mouth of this fjord on New Zealand's South Island. The sound was deemed the world's top travel destination in the 2008 Travelers' Choice Destinations Awards and is New Zealand's most famous tourist destination. Rudyard Kipling has once called it the eighth Wonder of the World and it's easy to see why. Clouds sometimes hang low shrouding the mountains in gray wisps as they rise mysteriously out of the surrounding waters. Take a cruise around the lake and you'll see waterfall after waterfall cascading down the peaks. With its unusually high rainfall, Milford Sound is the wettest inhabited area in New Zealand and one of the wettest in the world. The area wasn't discovered by Europeans until 1812 since the entryway from the ocean is so narrow. After its discovery it was named Milford Haven after the Welsh explorer's homeland.The Milford Track is a four day hike described by Kipling as "the finest walk in the world." It is a very well-traveled path by now and booking is required before hiking it.

Milford Sound, Fiordland National Park