I got told I woke up choosing violence. I actually woke up pretty happy and alert. The problem was I didn’t change my alarm back to 5.30am after our early start yesterday. I just got up and got moving for the day. We had spoke about getting the camper warmed up and going to the southern Mavora Lake for a swim. So I did that which in turn made the others get up haha.

But hey look at the bright side we have an incredible ice halo/rainbow to play with.

LOTR picture reenactment. Rowan is Gimli, I am Aragorn and Jenna is Legolas. We set up a stick tripod in order to capture the scene. We are all sad because we think we have lost Merry & Pippin.

Lake Manapouri swing by to take some more LOTR photos. It is a fantastic day, we detour up to Lake Monowai too.

When we discovered Clifden Caves a few years ago we said we would be back and prepared. Today is the day. Now it is a lot more claustrophobic than Cave Stream and a lot more dirty. It doesn’t have water running through it so it makes for a very muddy track. It was great to see a few glow worms.

After the filthy cave we really wanted and needed a swim. We tried two locations and ended up on Gemstone Beach where there was a large do not swim sign. We have a quick look on google and see that there is a safe spot down the road called Monkey Island. It is sheltered from the large swells and currents. We have a great swim there before our search Gemstone Beach. I think Germie was overwhelmed and was struggling not to take all the rocks with her. It was very different for us because normally the whole beach is covered in stones but a storm must have put loads of sand up onto the beach.

We stayed the night at Gemstone Beach and were rewarded with a fantastic sunset. hard to see in the photos but we had great views of Fiordland too.