Milford Sound

This is one of our earlier starts today as we've got a boat booked for early arvo to check out Milford Sound. It's about a 3.5 hour drive from Queenstown. We hit the road and make the obligatory stop for breakfast pies (we're on vacay, don't judge) and coffee.

We've given ourselves enough time to make a few stops along the way. The first one is Mirror Lakes which is exactly what it sounds like; Lakes so still and glassy the mountains are reflected perfectly in it. Beautiful. We travel a bit further and make a stop at a lookout, where we encounter a kea! There's plenty of signage saying not to feed them and it's very tame trying to get into cars and generally wreak havoc (they have a habit of taking things that don't belong to them). A naughty little kea indeed!

We make a few other random stops, mainly just to admire the scenery. There's massive mountains on either side covered in snow. Our mouths are hanging open with how unreal this scenery is.

There's a few stretches of road with signs saying avalanche/rock falling zones, we're that close to the action. At one point we drive into a tunnel which goes straight through a mountain, the tunnel took them 30 years to build!

After a pretty long morning of driving we arrive at the sound. We've got about 45 mins or so til sail time so we tuck into our paced lunch of BLT bagels. There's stacks of small planes taking off and landing at the nearby airport, another option for checking out the sound. These plans come down pretty low and close to the mountains, a bit too adventurous for us.

It's time to board so we head to the upper deck which is mostly uncovered. We've been sent some of best weather on this trip and today's is exceptional. It's sunny and warm enough that the breeze on the moving boat isn't too cold at all. We set sail and are immediately in awe of the sound. The bluest water surrounded by mountains with trees and waterfalls. If that's not enough, we treated to dolphins who've come to have a play in the waves created by the boat. Our captain tells us that apparently Captain Cook sailed past here 3 times on his travels and didn't spot the sound, so he completely missed this natural beauty. Incredible stuff.

There's not really much out here other than the sound, so we back track about an hour and a half to our motel for the night. On the way, Jeff spies more mirror lakes through the trees. We have to stop for some piccies, sometimes this stuff has to be seen to believed, it's that amazing.

We arrive in Te-Anau and check-in at the motel and get a recommendation for The Moose for dinner. It's a short walk and on the way we marvel at the nearby lake. This is just a stopover town for us but it's still gorgeous. We get to the pub/restaurant where we have a feed, beers and throw some darts. We do a bit of star gazing (so many to see out here with minimal light pollution and clear skies) and then head to bed. We watch some of the prelim final but it's an absolute blow-out, so time for sleep.