Milford Sound?...Check!

December 28, 2007

One of the big "things-to-do" on our list was checking out Milford Sound, recommended by everyone and every guide for NZ on earth.

To get to Milford Sound, there's a pretty arduous 4 hour drive from Queenstown before you hop on the 2-hour cruise, which makes for a long day. Will and I decided to try the fly-cruise-fly option, which involves a 35-minute flight in a 6-seater propeller plane, the 2 hour cruise, and another flight back to Queenstown. It was a bit of splurge, but the thought of 8-9 hours in a car was not appetizing to us or John (our driver).

Thankfully, it was a gorgeously perfect day, clear skies and bright sun (a drastic change from the day before which was completely overcast and raining hard for most of the day in Queenstown).

John dropped us off for our 10 AM flight and we were off:

We were on the plane with another couple from the UK and a guy from Australia. Our pilot was quite nice and gave us commentary on the way to Milford Sound as we flew over the gold rush areas, Shotover River, had sights of the Coronet Peak ski area and the town of Glenorchy (where they apparently filmed some of "Lord of The Rings", a common theme in NZ...).

Scenes from the flight to Milford Sound:








We got off the flight, were whisked onto a bus shuttle, and taken to the dock, where we boarded one of Red Cruises boats.













After the cruise, we were once again shuttled back to the airport and collected into another little plane, this time with a different pilot. This new pilot was more adventurous than the previous, with sharp banking turns and up-close views of glaciers on the ride back. We also took a different route back to Queenstown, with sights of the mountains in Fiordland National Park.









A couple views of Queenstown on our approach:





Will and I had such a fantastic time on the flight-cruise-flight to Milford Sound, and I would recommend it to anyone, particularly if you have nice weather. Following this experience, Will and I searched Wikipedia for a while to determine the differences between a "sound", a "fjord or fiord", a "bay", and "estuary", and so on and so on. It's still not that clear to us.

We caught a ride back to Queenstown city center and went for lunch on the patio of the Speight's Ale House, where I enjoyed a pretty fantastic salad with grilled lamb.
After lunch, we wandered around Queenstown and checked out the waterfront (a little anti-climactic after seeing it from the plane) and found the Queenstown Gardens, a public park where there's an official disc golf course in the middle of this very, very busy public park.






Late afternoon, we met up with John and Emily, and then went for dinner with some of their friends living in Queenstown at a great asian-ish restaurant called Chop Chop. After dinner, we went for drinks, specifically the ginger beer (which they brew and has alcohol) at Dux de Lux Bar, which was damn yummy.

An interesting side not is how long it stays light out in Queenstown during the summer compared to even the north island. It is a bit surreal when you're that far down south and you feel like you're on the edge of the earth...

A solid day and night in Queenstown. Blogtastic.