Queenstown to Milford Sound

  Lake Wakatipu Queenstown right outside our hotel.

 The rainforest at the Chasm.

 Our home for the night.

Milford Sound (or fjord)

Thursday, January 14^th.

Today was another travel day. We loaded up the van after breakfast and drove out of Queenstown to our next stop, Milford Sound about 50 km away as the crow flies, but 300 km away because of the mountains in between.

The first stop was the town of Te Anau on Lake Te Anau where we stopped for a quick lunch. I saw a small flock of Canada geese on the lake! I shopped at a grocery store for yogurt and fruit. Max dropped off our trailer with all the luggage as we won't need it until tomorrow and we are coming back this way.

Then we drove through the Eglinton Valley into Fjordland National Park, the largest park in New Zealand. We stopped at a small mirror lake where we could see reflections in the water.

Later we came to a tunnel that was dug out by hand through a mountain from 1930 to 1950 to make traveling to Milford Sound easier. By the way, although it is called Milford Sound, it is in fact a fjord. A sound is a water filled valley created by a river. A fjord is a water filled valley created by a glacier.

We stopped for another scenic lookout called the Chasm. This a a roaring river carving its way through the rock. It has caused a beautiful feature where trapped rocks in pools twirl around with the current and carve bowls or circles in the rock. To get to the Chasm we had to walk for a few minutes through anothe beautiful primordial rainforest. No wonder this is where Lord of the Rings was shot.

The final 50 km of road was very windy as we climbed and descended our the mountains to Milford Sound. We arrived at the boat terminal at 4:00 and waited for a half hour before boarding our overnight accomodation. Jan Eric and I have a nice small cabin aboard the Milford Mariner.

This is a beautiful area with mountains and very steep cliffs into the sea. It rains here two out of three days and receives over 7 metres of rain annually and can get an inch of rain an hour, so were lucky and it was mostly sunny.

We were given a briefing on rules and regs and then we sailed out into the sound. The water was very rough and the wind was very strong. We went half way and then turned around for our overnight anchorage. We were supposed to kayak here but the water is too rough, so they took groups out in the 'tenders' (runabouts) for a ride.

At seven we were invited into the dinning galley for dinner. It was buffet style and had lots of salads, seafood, vegetables and beef and rack of lamb, followed by a wide assortment of desserts.

After dinner we went to another room and the nature guide on board, Stu, showed us a slideshow of the history of the sound and some of the nature here. He was very entertaining and funny.

Just before I retired I went for a walk about the decks and heard seals in the water. They were chasing fish that were attracted to the lights on the boat and then I found a couple that had landed on the back deck of the boat which is at water level. They were there just relaxing. To bed at 11:00 to sort photos and type.