New Zealand South Island Trip: Day 10 (Post 6 of 8)
Day 10 - Monday, 22 February: Queenstown / Travelling to Milford Sound
We stopped briefly at Kingston, then went across farmlands to Fiordland. We visited Lake Manapouri.
We then stopped at Te Anau for lunch.
This made me laugh
As did this - a common sight when I was looking for internet.
Photo stop
Our coach
This was the Mirror Lake
The Canadian laughed at this little robin with his spindly little legs and his pathetic lack of knees :)
We followed the Eglinton Valley, native forests, lakes, waterfalls and mountains.
"Don't Feed the Kea" sign - or "Try Not To Get Your Hand Bitten Off By Soulless Bird"
We then travelled through the Hollyford Valley and Homer Tunnel..
Our coach was parked at Milford Sound.
Then we boarded the Milford Mariner for an overnight cruise.
There's only one road in and out of Milford Sound and it's rather remote and treacherous-looking. Milford Sound (Piopiotahi in Māori) is a fjord in the south west of the South Island, within Fiordland National Park and the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage site. It's technically fjord as it is a valley formed by glaciers as opposed to a 'sound', being a valley formed by a lake - but apparently at the time Milford Sound was discovered, the word 'fjord' had not yet entered the English language :D
We were told that due to limited space, we should each just bring a small overnight bag/backpack. Goodness only knows why, but Ms Chicago elected to bring THREE bags along with her, including her pillow and an airline wheelie bag which was too large and unwieldy for the coach and which she could never stow and retrieve on her own but always had to get one of the men in the group to retrieve. I'd been all right about her for the first part of the journey but by day 10, I was realising why the rest of the group found her so irritating. It wasn't her screeching voice with the highly exaggerated American accent that sounded like a trans-atlantic cockatoo in pain, it was the fact that she never seemed to listen to what anyone said and just asked incredibly dopey questions. Until then, I'd been amused by her but her insistence on calling me by the wrong name despite my corrections was starting to grate on me. The Canadian was calling for patience which only made me seethe more :D
That being said, I did my best to avoid her and the cruise was wonderful. There was a dining area:
Our cabin was at the bottom of these stairs
We had the cutest cabin you could imagine:
It was pretty windy when we first arrived.
So we took shelter in the captain's room.
The views were amazing.
We saw seals
We were taken out on tenders to view the shoreline. It was very misty in the distance.
Shoreline
The water was incredibly clear
A cormorant
The Mariner
The Canadian tried the local beer
From our window, we could see seals swimming in the water and most spookily, at night we could see glowing white birds flying through the air looking like ghosts.
It was around Milford Sound, though that I had the majority of my encounters with the most evil New Zealand sandfly. Despite applying copious quantities of strong repellent, the little monsters bit me anyway.
We stopped briefly at Kingston, then went across farmlands to Fiordland. We visited Lake Manapouri.
We then stopped at Te Anau for lunch.
This made me laugh
As did this - a common sight when I was looking for internet.
Photo stop
Our coach
This was the Mirror Lake
The Canadian laughed at this little robin with his spindly little legs and his pathetic lack of knees :)
We followed the Eglinton Valley, native forests, lakes, waterfalls and mountains.
"Don't Feed the Kea" sign - or "Try Not To Get Your Hand Bitten Off By Soulless Bird"
We then travelled through the Hollyford Valley and Homer Tunnel..
Our coach was parked at Milford Sound.
Then we boarded the Milford Mariner for an overnight cruise.
There's only one road in and out of Milford Sound and it's rather remote and treacherous-looking. Milford Sound (Piopiotahi in Māori) is a fjord in the south west of the South Island, within Fiordland National Park and the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage site. It's technically fjord as it is a valley formed by glaciers as opposed to a 'sound', being a valley formed by a lake - but apparently at the time Milford Sound was discovered, the word 'fjord' had not yet entered the English language :D
We were told that due to limited space, we should each just bring a small overnight bag/backpack. Goodness only knows why, but Ms Chicago elected to bring THREE bags along with her, including her pillow and an airline wheelie bag which was too large and unwieldy for the coach and which she could never stow and retrieve on her own but always had to get one of the men in the group to retrieve. I'd been all right about her for the first part of the journey but by day 10, I was realising why the rest of the group found her so irritating. It wasn't her screeching voice with the highly exaggerated American accent that sounded like a trans-atlantic cockatoo in pain, it was the fact that she never seemed to listen to what anyone said and just asked incredibly dopey questions. Until then, I'd been amused by her but her insistence on calling me by the wrong name despite my corrections was starting to grate on me. The Canadian was calling for patience which only made me seethe more :D
That being said, I did my best to avoid her and the cruise was wonderful. There was a dining area:
Our cabin was at the bottom of these stairs
We had the cutest cabin you could imagine:
It was pretty windy when we first arrived.
So we took shelter in the captain's room.
The views were amazing.
We saw seals
We were taken out on tenders to view the shoreline. It was very misty in the distance.
Shoreline
The water was incredibly clear
A cormorant
The Mariner
The Canadian tried the local beer
From our window, we could see seals swimming in the water and most spookily, at night we could see glowing white birds flying through the air looking like ghosts.
It was around Milford Sound, though that I had the majority of my encounters with the most evil New Zealand sandfly. Despite applying copious quantities of strong repellent, the little monsters bit me anyway.