Milford Sound... A place of peace and beauty.

The one thing I was not going to miss on my trip to Queenstown was a visit out to Milford Sound. I would have walked if I had to, although thankfully that wasn’t necessary. I had a very comfortable and enjoyable day.
 

My day started early again today. One good thing was the tour company provided a hotel pickup. While waiting for my pickup I took some more photos of the hotel garden and the glorious dawn.

The tour bus was fantastic. It is the best coach I have ever travelled on. Initially I was a bit sceptical about going on such a large tour bus as I like the smaller more personalised tours, and this one wasn’t at all personalised, however the guide was friendly and informative, the whole day ran smoothly and the bus made up for it.

The bus was wedge shaped, with the front narrower and lower than the back to give the windows a bit of an angle and the passengers a better view. The roof of the bus was mostly glass panels so you felt as if the breathtaking scenery was enveloping you. I took an excessive amount of photos today, and many of them from the bus window as the scenery was stunning the whole way; trust me, I have spared you most of them, even though your eyeballs will be bleeding by the time you get to the end of today’s many photos.

We stopped for morning tea at Te Anau, where I wandered along the beach on the shores of Lake Te Anau enjoying the peace and tranquillity and of course, the magnificent view. There wasn’t much time to explore, so I didn’t have the opportunity to take my time with my photos.

This was a bit of a theme during my time in New Zealand, I did feel a bit rushed most places I went, however, you could close your eyes, spin around three times and snap off a shot and it would still be sublime.

On the way to Milford Sound, we made a few stops at pretty places along the way. Among them, Mirror Lakes, The Chasm, and a babbling stream where we filled our water bottles with the deliciously refreshing water that had come tumbling down from the top of the Southern Alps.

Our cruise boat was one of the largest in the sound, which again didn’t help to personalise things. In fact, as I was travelling on my own, there was no mingling on the bus and once we were on the boat, everyone headed off to grab lunch; I was starting to feel a little neglected.

That was until another passenger travelling alone came to join me for lunch and ended up being a fantastic travelling companion. Fil from Canada and I made fast friends and spent a wonderful afternoon together soaking up the striking view and finding out all about each other.

The cruise was wonderful, Milford Sound is so stunning, and Fil and I went a little overboard (no pun intended) with the photos. After the cruise, Fil and I went our separate ways after swapping email addresses. I was off to my scenic flight back to Queenstown.

There are only so many descriptive words to use to describe the view and I think I have used them all, if not then it was only because I was holding back. However, the flight home was dazzling, and I sat there in my seat at the front of the plane next to the pilot snapping away on my camera.

I had a wonderful day, even though the tour was all a bit big and impersonal, it was very well organised. I’m glad I met Fil; otherwise, I would have been a bit lonely. When I first thought about doing this tour I thought I would fly in and fly back out of Milford Sound instead of doing the coach. However, I am genuinely glad I did, the stops along the way made the longer trip well worth it.