Milford Sound and the Dolphins

We got up early this morning as we were doing a day trip to Milford Sound with Kiwi Experience. We said our goodbyes to the rest of the group and walked outside to see the Kiwi Experience bus about to pull off so we ran down the street and managed to flag it down!!!

As we'd been partying the night before, I spent the first part of the journey asleep (also my eye was hurting and it was difficult to keep it open!) before waking up at Te Anau for a mid-morning stop at a cafe while Jase, our driver, went to the petrol station. After re-fuelling ourselves (and waking up a bit), we carried on passing some amazing scenery!

We stopped at some mirror lakes and managed to get a couple of great shots before the rain came in! At least it was better than at Lake Matheson! The drive continued on through the Eglington Valley and interestingly named places like Knob's Flat and the Divide! We had to stop at the traffic lights at Homer Tunnel so used this as a great opportunity to get out and stretch our legs, marvel at the snow-capped mountains around us and watch the Kea (alpine parrots) try and dismantle unsuspecting tourists' cars - they have a thing for the rubber around car windows! Through the tunnel, we hit a wall of mist and couldn't see anything! Glad I wasn't driving!

We stopped at the Chasm, a waterfall which had eroded the surrounding rocks and created giant holes. We'd walked through the surrounding forest with the noise of the waterfall getting louder and louder and it was worth the walk!

We then raced to the docks to catch the Spirit of Milford as we were running a little late! We were given a free cup of tea and a chance to warm up a little bit as the boat began its 2 hour journey around the sound. It began to rain very lightly (the type that gets you soaking wet!) and Kate & I were unprepared for this, only wearing hoodies and not waterproof jackets so spent our time between standing on the top deck and standing next to to driver of the boat looking out the front window!

We got to see seals on the rocks and plenty of waterfalls and then along came a group of dolphins who decided that they wanted to swim around by the front of the boat. We got to watch them for a bit before they got bored with us and moved on!

We stopped off briefly at the Underwater Observatory to see the mixture of sea creatures in that survive here before going back to shore and onto the bus for the trip back to Queenstown (which I fell asleep during and woke up half way through the Family Guy movie!)