Thursday - we had decided to get a coach to Milford sound rather than drive ourselves, so that we could relax about the journey time and arrival and get to fully enjoy the scenery enroute. We left at 8am this morning and had a stunning journey to Milford. The road through to Milford was only completed in the early 1950s, before then it used to take about four to five days to walk and boat across from Te Anau, so you can imagine this was pretty remote and difficult terrain - you do still get a sense of a hard life lived down in this area. The weather was great, not a cloud in the sky and all the melt water was coming off the mountains in waterfalls. The coach driver made a number of stops for us to do small walks and take photos and we arrived in Milford at about 11.30 and got on our catarmaran. We journeyed down the sound, which apparently isn't a sound really, it a fjord - I.e. carved by a glacier not a river. It really does deserve the accolade of eighth wonder of the world - simply beautiful. The mountains seem to rise straight up out of the sea and the evergreen beech trees grow out of the rocks. We saw fur seals sunbathing on rocks but unfortunately no dolphins or penguins this time. We also were able to visit the underwater observatory half way down the sound, 8 metres below the surface, and could see various fish and corals. We arrived back in Milford after a three hour cruise and then headed back to Te Anau for a beer. Off to Dunedin and the Otago peninsular tomorrow - long journey!!