Across the Ditch in 2012: Sound Track

Monday – The bus to Milford Sound was coming from Queenstown so it would have been an early start for them. Not so for us. Our shuttle bus picked us up at the hostel at 9.30 and took us all the way … around the corner. We could have walked.

Our tour guide gave an excellent commentary on the drive and at the stops along the way where we had a chance to experience more of the magical scenery.

 

Milford Sound, along with all the other “sounds” in New Zealand are, in fact, not sounds but fjords. Sounds are carved by rivers and are shallow with gently sloping sides. Fjords are carved by glaciers, are deep and have steep sides. The names of the sounds have remained, but the error was corrected – with another mistake. The area is named Fiordland. Yes, spelt with an I instead of a J.

We thought we were lucky to have such beautiful weather. Surprisingly, several people have told us that it is better to see Milford either in or just after rain because more of the waterfalls are running. It’s true that there were very few running. Now I feel I would like to go back in the rain.

At least there was one bonus to our first booking being cancelled. The trip we did was on a smaller boat, which allowed us to get much closer to the sides than on a bigger boat would have.

The views of Milford are all the commentary it needs.

 

It was a long day and I think everyone on the bus – except, fortunately, the driver – went to sleep on the trip back. So glad we didn’t have to go all the way back to Queenstown. We thought our day was long!

Back at the hostel we chatted to the guy at reception about where we would go next. We had thought about Stewart Island but had decided to skip it this trip. He suggested Kinloch, near Queenstown and we thought it looked like a good spot for fishing and walking, so booked 2 nights.

We’d decided to have dinner at a local restaurant tonight and chose Kepler’s Restaurant where we enjoyed camembert filo parcels with quince paste and bacon wrapped scallops for our entrées and venison steak with red wine jus and lobster thermidor for the main course.

We ended a wonderful day sitting up late and chatting to other travellers at the hostel.