Milford Sounds

Milford Sounds is listed as a must do when you come to visit NZ so even though Jacquie had been here before she was keen to visit again - it's basically a stretch of water with glacier carved mountains and waterfalls. A nice and early up at 6 today to catch the bus at 7, then a 5 hour journey to the sounds from Queenstown (thankfully there were a number of stops and photo opportunities to break up the journey - the best being another mirror lake and Gertrude's Valley). The scenery heading down is unbelievable - glaciers, snow capped mountains, lakes, native bush and rain-forests all the way.


We got really lucky with the weather, as our journey down was basked in sunshine the whole way. However we were warned in advance that Milford Sounds has it's very own weather climate and it certainly lived up to it. When we actually arrived and boarded our boat for the 2 hour cruise on the sounds the weather just changed in about 5 minutes, the next thing we knew it was storm conditions. The sun vanished and was replaced by grey clouds and then the most torrential rain and wind we've encountered since arriving in NZ. Even though the weather was so bad it doesn't actually spoil the scenery because it's better in the wet as it makes the many waterfalls so much more potent to the eye. Being the old sea dog that I am, I stayed right up on the top deck during the entire 2 hour cruise in my trusty Adobe rain jacket - christ it was so cold but I kept at it hoping for some good photos. The highlight of the cruise was when they actually take the boat into a waterfall and of course you get drenched, but it's so worth it for the experience and also the view. I did manage however to bust my digital camera again (the first time being when I was sand dune boarding with my camera - bad idea) by getting it soaked but it was worth it (it dried out a few hours later and is fine again, so no excuse to get another one yet).



Then it was a 5 hour coach journey back but thankfully they showed a movie to pass some of the time at least. All in all a good day, I'm still not sure it was worth the money and of course the time to get there and back, but again when will we ever be back here again and the views were pretty, no actually stunning I guess. Oh and of course it's advertised as being a great cruise to see wildlife particularly Hectors dolphins but of course our dolphin curse struck once more and wee saw hee haw dolphins. Bugger!