This post was for yesterday December 19, 2012.
Today we drove to Milford Sound from Queenstown. The drive was about 4 hours and, in typical New Zealand fashion, it was so beautiful.
We only pulled over a handful of times. One of the best stops was at Eglinton River. It was a clear river with beautiful purple flowers all around it and amazing mountains behind it. We also had to drive through the long Homer Tunnel that basically went straight through the mountain. There was one bit of a rough patch on the road where they're still cleaning up from an avalanche that happened this winter.
We checked in at the Milford Sound Visitor Terminal and the lady told us we have been complimentary upgraded to a private room (we booked a quad room because it was cheaper and they said they could fill the other 2 spots). So that was nice of them and great for us.
In Maori legend, the fiords were created not by rivers of ice, but by Tu Te Raki Whanoa, a godly figure who came wielding a magical adze uttering incantations. Milford Sound isn't actually a Sound at all, it's a Fiord. The difference is that a Fiord is a glaciated valley. It's a narrow and steep-sided area that has been flooded by the sea after the glacier's retreat. A Sound is a river valley that's been flooded by the sea.
After a brief safety meeting on the boat, we went to check out our room. Our door opens right up to the outside and we have a constantacular (constantly spectacular, I just made that up) view. The rainforest clings to sheer rock walls washed with waterfalls. Mitre peak dominates the skyline and sticking out of the clouds we could see snow-capped Mount Pembroke. We also drove right up under a waterfall that created a beautiful rainbow right along the bottom of the rocks.
We learned that Milford Sound is the wettest inhabited place in all of New Zealand but it is a beautiful day here today. Because we had such nice weather we were able to go up a little further for our night activities to a little bay right about at the Tasman Sea.
We went on a guided cruise in a little boat around Anita Bay. The guide took us out past Post Office Island, which was actually used to drop (or send) mail or supplies when it was too difficult to travel through the Fiord in bad weather. He also pointed out the peaks we could see and some trees and gave us other bits of knowlege about the area.
We came back up to the boat for dinner. We moved to a different part in the Fiord and had an awesome view of the Stirling Falls.
Dinner was a delicious 3 course meal and we sat next to another couple in our assigned booth. After dinner the guide that did our little cruise earlier gave a slide show presentation with pictures of Milford Sound and the whole Fiordland area. He was really funny and included a few funny video clips too. Some of the pictures he showed us were from when it was raining and all you could see were waterfalls after waterfalls. I thought we saw a lot of them but the pictures he showed us were just crazy.It almost made me wish for rain so we could see something like that. Haha.
The rest of the night was ours to enjoy. We took a look out at sunset, which was a little hard to capture because the mountain peaks are so steep. Now that it's dark, we're just going to bed.
Til tomorrow.
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