We have booked into a “Real Journey” overnight trip of Milford Sounds – part of the Fiordlands National Park in New Zealand’s South West. We jumped on a bus from Queenstown for what would be an 8 hour journey of stunning lakes, mountains, waterfalls, lupans, and… more rain!! We had plenty of side trips and stops on the way which included Kingston, Te Anau, Mirror Lake and a field of Lupans. Beautiful. We had to wait at a tunnel – and to be given the all clear to enter so we did a short walk – very dramatic – snow, waterfalls, steep mountains. When it came time to drive through the tunnel it was pretty scary. We had just about made it to the end when we had discovered that the traffic lights at the other end had gone a bit wonky and traffic had started coming in. If it was just cars, they could have passed with no issues but this tunnel is only 1 and a half lanes wide so there was no hope that the vans and busses lined up would pass us. Spent the next 15 minutes watching and waiting for about a dozen vehicles to reverse out of the tunnel so we could get out and continue our journey to Milford Sounds. Had a fairly steep and windy road to navigate to get to Milford and because of the tunnel, were running a bit late but our driver did a great job.
We jumped straight onto out little vessel – The Friendship – which was going to be our overnight home! The Friendship is dwarfed by the other boats docked next to it – each, for over night cruises, housing between 40 and 60 people compared to our 12. Started our cruise of the Fiord – pretty windy, rough, bumpy and wet and took some time to get our sea legs. Was very interesting trying to serve ourselves up a cup of soup and then walk back to our table!!! Everything I have ever seen of Milford Sounds has been taken on the picture perfect day – and this was far from the perfect day, but didn’t stop us enjoying the beautiful, stunning, awesome trip to the Tasman Sea and back. We had dolphins and fur seals to entertain us as well as beautiful waterfalls, stunning cliffs, and amazing views. We moored in a bay for the night and were fed a delicious feast of BBQ meat, salads and veggies. We were pretty excited when the weather settled down and the water became calm as this allowed us to launch the kayaks. We got really rugged up and paddled around the cliffs – was jaw dropping. Had the company of a seal while kayaking and was simply amazing to watch it playing in the shadows of the cliffs. A nice night spent talking to others on the boat, the 2 crew members and drinking champagne to celebrate Felicity’s birthday.
We woke the next morning to vary calm water with magnificent reflections. Still very overcast and wet but didn’t faze us one bit. Had a beaut nights sleep and successfully didn’t fall out of the top bunk nor whack my head! Had a hot breakfast then the camera came out pretty quick to capture the stunning reflections. Had one last tour of Milford Sounds – seeing dolphins one more time – a perfect end to a brilliant trip. Highly recommend the overnight Milford trip to anyone traveling to NZ – and to pick the smallest boat!
On our drive back to Queenstown we stopped at The Chasm – specky rocks shaped / sculptured by wind, water, air etc. We stopped at The Divide to drop Kate and Felicity off who were walking the Routeburn Track – 2 nights and apparently spectacular. Picking them up from the other end.
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