Milford Sound

Tuesday, July 24

Up again for our last particularly early morning, Stephen and I rolled out of our very warm bed at 6:15am to get up and head out into the cold for our journey to Milford Sound. For some unknown reason, we did not layer nearly as well as yesterday, Stephen going with a long sleeve shirt and a sweatshirt and me with a t-shirt and a sweatshirt. BIG mistake (but we didn’t know it yet).

We were picked up at our hotel a little before 7am to take us to the departure site at 7:30. It was during our 15 minutes of waiting at the departure site we realized we may have wanted a few more layers. Fortunately, we had remembered to pack our hats and gloves, which were very helpful as the day progressed.

At 7:30, we got on our tour bus, which was not an ordinary tour bus – it had a glass roof (see below) and began the 5 hour drive to Milford Sound. 

As per usual, I slept the first two hours, despite the continual commentary by the bus driver. Stephen tried to sleep, but was unable, so he took in the scenery and captured some of the locations on film. 

Three hours in, we had a quick opportunity to stretch our legs in the town of Te Anau, stopping in a small town to pick up a few more passengers and allowing a quick coffee break at the local café.

We then spent the next two plus hours in the bus getting up to Milford sound, stopping a few times for pictures and once to fill our water bottle with incredibly pure and even colder water – you can see Stephen doing that below. The water tasted great.

The scenery kept getting more and more spectacular – and though the photos do it no justice – here is a video that was sort of successful.

Around 1pm we made it to the marina where we waited to board our boat for the scenic cruise up the sound (which we learned is actually a fjord – like everything else in NZ, it was originally misnamed). We spent two hours on the cruise going up and down both sides of the sound, mainly sitting on the top deck in the sun taking in the views. While we were provided lunch on this adventure, the food providers must have been unclear on the difference between vegetarian and vegan, as the only thing I could eat in my lunch was an apple – fortunately, we had brought along peanut butter sandwiches, which made a fine lunch for me. Stephen ate my boxed lunch for me, and decided his was better.

During our tour, we saw baby fur seals, bottlenose dolphins, multiple waterfalls (one of which we sailed right up to), and overall incredibly scenery. Here are lots of pictures.

This is our boat:

 Looking back from the boat after the harbor was out of view:

The really sheer cliff edges and the unbelievably calm water:

 Returning back from the ocean (with seals coming into view on the left):

Better picture of seals:

The big waterfall we went really close to (and even got a little wet from):

Some random couple in front of the waterfalls. Those jerks got in the way of our picture:

 Don't you love the background?

 Bottlenose dolphins:

 A better background photo for us (although Stephen thinks he looks like he's going to rob a mini-mart):

 Finally a good shot. Both of us and a waterfall.

 The waterfall looks better without us blocking it:

We returned to the marina two hours later, and hopped back on the bus for the 4 hour return drive (the drive back has no scenic stops and only stopped at Te Anau to refill the bus). This time, Stephen slept the first 2 hours while I took photos and enjoyed the scenery (and all of the sheep). The last hour and a half was apparently my breaking point, as I could not sit still any longer. Either the trip wasn’t enough to keep me sedated or all of our long adventures had finally caught up to me, but I had WAY TOO MUCH energy to be stuck on a bus in the dark. Let's just say Stephen wasn't able to sleep through that part of the trip.

Finally, by 7:30 we were back in downtown, where we wandered until we found a restaurant with a Sabrina-safe menu and a heater (it was cold, we were hungry, and the menu looked good). Dinner was lovely – I had tofu and sushi, Stephen had miso soup and sushi. After dinner, the wind had died down so we decided to take this opportunity to explore the city more, looking at various restaurants, trinket shops, and hostels. It had a definite ski-bum tourist feel with all of the ski shops and adventure travel agencies lining the streets, interspersed with bars and grocery stores. We stopped in an old school candy shop, drawn in by the smell of homemade fudge, walked out with both candy and fudge, and then headed over to the bus stop.

It was there we realized it was too late to catch a bus back to the hotel, so we decided to check the hours on the water taxis to see if we could get a ride back that way. Good news, we found the dock and the hours, and there was a taxi due back in 30 minutes. Perfect! We headed back toward the town to try and stay warm for the next half hour, opting to check out the local NZ gift shops rather than the crowded bars. The taxi arrived, so we hopped on board, paid the fees, and headed back to the hotel with our  small bag of goodies to enjoy upon our return.

However, what we returned TO wasn’t quite what we were expecting. Upon disembarking the water taxi, we heard a siren coming from the direction of our hotel. Stephen guessed fire alarm, I guessed car alarm. Turns out, Stephen was right – there were two fire trucks and bunch of hotel guests in pajamas outside the hotel. Our first thought was “Oh god. What did we leave plugged into our hotel room that caught fire.” There was one employee saying they didn’t know what was going on but that they would have us back inside as soon as they could. In the meantime, they suggested we go to the bar next door, grab a drink, sit by the fire places, and keep warm. That sounded like a good plan to us, so we headed into the bar, sat down by the fire place, and began to enjoy our fresh candy and fudge. 

Maybe 15 minutes later, people were heading back into the hotel. We weren’t able to get an explanation, but at this point, it was 11pm, so we didn’t really care – we were just hoping we hadn’t caused the alarm. We later found out it was caused by some people smoking in their rooms and refusing to stop. Or at least that’s the story.

As we weren’t tired quite yet, we curled up to watch the second half of a movie on tv (Easy A – a pretty good chick flick), heading to bed around midnight, with the knowledge that tomorrow we would be attempting to bungee jump.