Day 13 and 14 - Milford Sound

Today we set forth for Milford Sound. Famous in NZ for its stunning natural beauty, famous to the rest of the world because of that scene in Lord of the Rings, much like a lot of places here. For us we bought an overnight cruise on the sound, aboard the Wanderer. Just me and Andi, a couple of Americans and 39 Danish girls aged 18-26. Milford is known for its rain, but we lucked out and caught 2 stunning days of sunshine. That said it was mighty cold on the water that night. We sailed out onto the glacially carved fjord just as all the other day cruises were headed in. Up and down the length of the fjord we stood on deck watching the towering cliffs go by. Ranging from 700m to 1600m they rose straight from the sea, due to the grandeur it was difficult to judge the size, they looked half as tall.

About 5pm the boat anchored and we went swimming. It was bloody cold, Andi made me do it, you are only there once... So we jumped from the top deck of the boat into the deep deep water much to the amazement of ourselves and the other tourist on the boat.

20 minutes later we were skimming across the water top aboard the nature cruise that did its best to teach about the geology and history of the sound. We had an hour of education then it was dinner whilst we cruised to our mooring point for the night. The stars came out and shone all night as we gently bobbed in the water.

I awoke at 6:45 am to some idiot chick blow drying her hair, god know for what reason, I men we were only a good 1 hour cruise and 2.5hr drive from the nearest town. Some peoples kids, eh. I went up on deck to find us cruising once again, this time out to the gentle rollers of the Tasmen Sea. It was challenging to stay still on deck as the boat listed, Andi felt it in her tummy, she didn't like it.

By 9 am we headed back to the dock to disembark, our overnight on Milford was well worth it. If you ever find yourself close to Fjordland NZ do not miss it. You don't know what you are missing.