Milford Sound!

The next morning, we dragged our exhausted bodies out of bed to get on our "luxury coach" to Milford Sound. Milford is just on the other side of the mountain range in Queenstown, which would be a quick drive if you consider the distance between the two places. Unfortunately, they dont have a way through the mountains (yet...) and so you have to drive around them, so the trip takes 4 hours.

Our bus was beautiful and had glass ceiling portions so you could look up into the beech rainforests that surrounded us on our way.

Unfortunately we also had a bunch of snorers on our bus (particularily sitting right in front of me) so it was a little noisy.

Along the way we stopped at a couple places.

Here is Mirror Lake. A very famous tourist spot where (when it isn't raining) looks like a sheet of glass and perfectly reflects the surrounding mountains. Unfortunately, it was raining when we went so it wasn't as great as it could have been. (also note the amusing sign, which is written backwards so it reflects upright in the water)

As we had gotten so much rain, the waterfalls along the route were quite spectacular.
This was just on the side of the road.

Part of our trip was entering an unbelievably long tunnel. We had to wait for the light to let us go, so we all got off and took some pictures beside the crazy waterfalls all around.


Our second stop was at another waterfall/rainforest walk, where you could see the amazing effect of water on the scenery around us. These holes were all created by swirling whirpools over time.


More fantastic views of the surroundings from this stop as well.

After our long drive, we finally reached Milford Sound, where we set out on our 2 hour tour. (This was also our spot for the trip, right at the front of the ship, which would get much more crowded later on)

Milford was the most beautiful place. Full of waterfalls and unbelievable mountains in the fjord.

To give you a sense of scale, there are two boats in this picture. (you might have to click on the picture to open it up into another window) These were enormous.

This was called the Lion mountain (for obvious reasons)
This waterfall is three times the size of Niagara Falls. (and there is another boat underneath it to show scale)
At the beginning of our trip, it was cloudy with only some drops of rain. By the time we got out to the open ocean, it was WINDY and pouring rain. (a common theme during the trip)
We still decided to stick it out, and got some amazing shots.


As we rounded the corner, we reached the seal point, where endangered New Zealand Fur Seals commonly hang out. We were really lucky, and had a huge amount of seals there that day.
3 were "sunning" themselves on the rock.

and 20 or 30 more were swimming in the water.

Here we are coming up to the waterfall that we had seen from the other side not too long ago.
(the one that is 3x the size of Niagara Falls)

Here and Jenn and Jim getting younger by the waterfall (the Maori legend is if you stand in the spray, it will make you younger)

Here I am in the spray (although it was hard to distinguish between rain and waterfall water at this point)
Hey look! Dolphins!

cute little things. although everyone rushed outside and to the left of the boat, so it started moving that way which was a little alarming.

After our long day at Milford, we boarded the bus and headed back to Queenstown for another night of adventures at the Base Backpackers (this night was the parade of drunk people) and some excellent food at The Cow (real homemade garlic bread and gourmet pizza)