November 26, 2015
71: Day Trip - Milford Sound
Today, we have our day trip to Milford Sound, a gorgeous northern and most accessible of the fiords. We booked our day trip via Intercity bus and paid for a cruise ship ride. We got our passes to get onto the cruise and to get our lunch after! Our bus was pretty cool today, with a sunroof!
Our bus stopped by Te Anau for a pitstop. We stretched our legs and walked around the gift shop and food area. We didn't get much, but we saw these cute rams that made noises.
Then, we drove by New Zealand's second biggest lake, Lake Te Anau after Lake Taupo (which we saw!)
In Milford Sound, there's tons of amazing nature sights like cliffs, mountains, rainforest, waterfalls, and tons more. We may even see wildlife like NZ fur seals, bottlenose dolphins and (Fiordland crested & little blue) penguins! Also, Milford Sound gets 6-8 metres of rain a year.
We stopped at the beginning of Fiordland National Park and stopped for several photos.
We passed by the 45 degree south sign which was cool. We made a quick pitstop at Knobs Flat which had nice info panels on the nature and wildlife. Also, we drove past Lake Gunn and Lake Fergus.
Our driver stopped at Monkey Creek where we tried the clearest water ever. It was delicious! Also, we saw tons of Keas, the only alpine parrot. They're quite smart and curious birds. They'll bite at the rubber on the bus and will ride on the top of the vehicles.
We went through a really tight tunnel down into the mountain. Our driver told us to close our eyes as we went through the mountain. We opened our eyes after...
It was gorgeous.
We also did a quick loop hike, The Chasm which was an easy 15 min walk.
We went to the terminal for our boat ride. We rode the Pride of Milford. It was nice having lunch. I ordered the bento box and Keri had the buffet lunch.
We were quite full while watching the sights. We went up to the highest floor of boat and took quite a few photos. Milford Sound was gorgeous!
Our driver picked us back up and drove us back. However, on our way back, one of the trees fell down so we had to wait for someone to clear the roads. I'm not surprised as its quite windy outside. Roads were cleared in less than half an hour. We headed to Te Anau and then Queenstown.
We made dinner. Nothing like home made chicken, salad and vegetable stir fry. Yum! Although, note its hard to make food with very few ingredients. But we did well!
