New Zealand- Day 5: Saturday, October 4th

We woke up early again this morning to make the 3-hour drive to Milford Sound. It was pretty rainy, but that turned out to be a very good thing (more on that later).

About an hour into our drive we were behind a camper van that started to slow down and then moved to the other side of the road. It turned out there were a bunch of sheep being moved across the road. I’m no stranger to finding a herd of animals blocking a road (I am from Texas after all), but it was definitely interesting to see so many sheep all packed together.

The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful, but very beautiful. Because of the rain, there were waterfalls everywhere. As we got closer to Milford we had to go through a very narrow tunnel. On the other side we drove into a valley where we could see literally thousands of waterfalls coming down the mountain sides.

We got to the Sound right around 1, just in time for our cruise. The boat was a little small, especially compared to some of the others in the harbor, but there were fewer people, which was nice. The cruise was pretty spectacular. It’s kind of hard to describe just because it was so big! The mountains tower around the water and you just feel totally encompassed by your surroundings. Towards the end of the cruise we got a chance to see some NZ fur seals hanging out on the rocks. Our captain got super close to the rocks so we got to see them up close. Jordan really loved Milford and I think it was his favorite part of the trip.

The cruise was an hour and a half long, so we grabbed a couple sandwiches afterwards and started to make our way back to Queenstown. On the way we stopped to take some pictures and visit a couple of pretty cool sites. The first is called The Chasm. It is kind of like a waterfall in a cave, but the water rushes out of a riverbed and through the rocks. It was pretty cool to see. I took a video of it because it was very loud, but the sound and images just don’t compare. Hopefully, I can get the video up on Flickr. I’m not sure if it will work on there or not. When we walked back to the car park from The Chasm there were a bunch of NZ birds called Keas hanging around. They are super curious about everything and pretty funny to watch. As a family who was watching them got into their car one of the kea birds hopped onto their side view mirror and started looking through the window at them. It was kind of hilarious.

Our next stop on the drive back was to an area called the Mirror Lakes. These lakes are so still that they reflect the mountains behind them almost perfectly. This was pretty cool to see and I think the pictures turned out really well.

On our drive back we had stopped a couple of time to see if I could get one of the baby lambs to let me pet it, but they were all really scared and I couldn’t get close to any of them. We came across a farm-animal petting zoo type thing after our many failed attempts, so we stopped there to see if they would let me pet the lambs. They were closed for a private function, so we drove around the back where we could see some animals. In a small fenced in area there were two baby lambs, a miniature horse, and a goat. One of the lambs got up and came close enough to let me pet him- he even licked my hand. I’ve decided that if it was possible I would totally bring one back to the US. Lambs are way cool. Anyway, I tried to entice him back with an apple after he wandered away, but the horse wasn’t having any of that so I gave him the whole thing instead. I think it’s safe to say we made that horse very happy.

The rest of the drive back was pretty uneventful. More nice scenery and such. We grabbed some fish and chips for dinner and called it a night after that.