Day 1: Myself, Ginge and James boarded the bus bright and early as we set off towards Milford Sound. Also on the trip were some of the guys who I had actually liked from the bus we had ditched at Picton - Mark, James, Craig, Callum and Weibe. Thankfully, the annoying characters decided to give this trip a miss.
The journey over to Milford Sound was a long one and we didn´t reach Fiordland National Park for a few hours. Once we got there though, the views were simply spectacular. The whole area was surrounded by snow-capped mountains and the drive through the national park is definately one of the most scenic I´ve experienced. Prior to arriving at Milford Sound, we made several stops for pictures and so we could take in the awesome scenery. We also made a stop at a small, beautiful mirror lake before checking out lots of other streams and great viewpoints. This was just in the national park as well - we hadn´t even reached the main attraction yet.
My geography isn´t great but our guide, Jamie, gave us a good explanation of exactly what Milford Sound is. Basically, during the ice age, Glaciers carved lots of deep fiords in the area and Milford Sound is the most famous and most visited of these. This ice had also carved several islands away from the mainland, which form part of the appeal with this particular site. Bring it on.
We arrived at the port just before lunch and instantly boarded our boat to take us out onto Milford Sound. It´s absolutely stunning and nothing I can say here will really be able to do it justice - you will all need to wait for the pictures. It was pretty cold as we cruised our way through and there was also some mist in the air, which really added to the scenery as far as I was concerned. Lots of snow capped islands scattered around, complete with steep cliffs and some nice waterfalls for us to check out too. All this situated inside such deep valleys makes for truly amazing scenery. We could instantly see why this is the most popular tourist destination throughout the country. Nature at its best.
After an hour on the boat, we stopped at one of the islands, which had an underwater tourist observatory for us to check out. This included some extremely rare black coral, which had been retrieved from the sound. We also had a short guided tour of the observatory and the guide gave us more information about the history and formation of the sound.
It was then back on the boat to do the trip in reverse as we headed back towards the port. It was just as spectacular on the way back. Definately one of the most beautiful places I´ve ever been and an absolute must-do for anyone visiting New Zealand. Believe the hype.
We then got back on Jamie´s bus for the long journey back to Queenstown, stopping in a nice small town called Te Anau on the way.
That evening, we all headed out into Queenstown again for what would be our last night together. It didn´t start too great because I got kicked out of a bar for complaining about my Beer tasting off. Seriously! However, we found a better one and had another good, boozy night. No dance-off this time though.
That´s me done with Queenstown as I had to catch the bus back to Christchurch the following morning. I was gutted to be saying goodbye to the lads (Sam, Ginge, Josh, Cahal & James) as they had become some of my best mates on the entire trip and we had had a great laugh travelling the country together. I was also disappointed I´d only had 2 days in Queenstown, as it´s also a really beautiful place. Unfortunately, my time had run out though as I would be moving onto Fiji a couple of days later. I was pretty confident that would make me feel better.
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