New Zealand Day 4

Today we spent the day at Milford Sound. We stayed the night in Te Anau and drove from there, early in the morning out to Milford Sound. Here are some of the things we saw on the way.

We stopped by Mirror Lakes, which were small bodies of water that reflected the mountains beyond like a mirror. It was amazing until the wind started to pick up.

This is coming into the canyons just before the tunnel where they have bored through solid rock to get out to Milford sound. It was a long way down from up in the canyons to sea level too.

This is a water fall from the melting snow on the cliffs as we waited to go through the tunnel.

This was called The Chasm, where water had eroded away the rocks unevenly. We had to stop here so I could get out and take a walk. My ears would not pop because of my cold and I felt like my head was going to implode. We were descending so far so fast it was like a airplane landing. It was an amazing place and totally worth the walk.

It rains 300+ days a year at Milford sound, we were so lucky to have sun! Look how beautiful this place is. That is the base of Mitre Peak in the background, the one thing Willy really wanted to see and the clouds never cleared from the top around the peak. It was still way cool.

We got to see some seals lounging on the rocks.

But the dolphins were really the highlight of the trip, they chased the boat a bit and would jump out of the water, it was so cool. They are so playful and fun to watch.

These falls appear in many movies according to the tour guide. Including X-men Origins, Wolverine.

We went to this underwater, floating aquarium out in the sound. We got to see all sorts of cool underwater creatures that lived in the fresh water above the salt water.

My main squeeze waiting for the boat to pick us up from the aquarium, Hubba-Hubba.

Me, Will's main squeeze...ditto.

After Milford Sound, we headed to Queenstown. We found a cool ice cave and did a little exploring. The wind coming out of it was freezing.

I guess you would expect that.

I have no idea what lake this was, but it was really pretty and reminded us of home a bit.

On the way into Queenstown we stopped to get some photos of Lake Wakatipu at the far east end. The water was so blue, it looked awesome. Queenstown sits on the north eastern shores of this lake.