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.

New Zealand Day 3

Today we had another early start, we were spending the day on a tour to Doubtful Sound. We got to the docks and Lake Manapouri at about 7:30 am, it was only about 20 minutes from Te Anau. The morning was so beautiful, but the sun didn't hang around long.

This is at the docks preparing for our trip.

The boat ride across the lake took over an hour. It was so pretty with the sun shining.

As the sun began to hide...

Then it began to rain, we never went anywhere without our rain jackets. When we got across the lake, we hopped on a bus that took us down from the lake and out to Doubtful Sound.

One stop on the tour, on the way to Doubtful sound was the Manapouri Power Station. Its build way underground, we actually took a bus down into the mountain where we saw the power station. It was interesting to say the least.

Here is a view of the bus we were on down in the tunnel. The drive actually turned that thing around in this spot, it was close.

Looking from the pass down to Doubtful Sound. Beyond those mountains is the open ocean.

We spend the next 3 hours out on the water, all the way out to the ocean and back.

This view is looking back into Doubtful Sound from the ocean. I guess Captain James Cook looked from here and was doubtful that it was navigable very far in his ship. Turns out it went waaaay back there and had more than one channel.

We saw some playful dolphins.

Small Scott got to ride on a weasel like animal called a Stote.

This place was just so different than any place we had ever known. Not very conducive to human life or comfort. Lots of birds though, and apparently stotes.

On the way back across lake Manapouri. Yay, Sun!

Long day, we were glad to be back to Te Anau. We went out to dinner then went to see a movie about Fiordland National Park, it was awesome.