It was another early start for us yesterday as we embarked upon our final daytrip of the holiday, heading down to Fiordland National Park for a cruise around the infamous Milford Sound.

We left Queenstown in the drizzle and went via Te Anau, carrying on through Te Anau Downs, k*** Flat (!) and through the Homer Tunnel. That was completely mental - it's literally a hole drilled through a mountain without any kind of interior structural support, so I was half expecting it to collapse on us midway through. When we emerged safe on the other side, we sped down into Cleddau Canyon. By this time however it had started to rain heavily so our views of the mountains were severely impaired by the mist that shrouded the whole landscape.

Once at Milford we boarded a very swish looking boat called 'The Pride of Milford', got involved with the free hot buffet and then prepared to enjoy the scenery. Unfortunately it was raining torrentially so we managed about 15 minutes huddled outside in our kagouls before we nearly got blown away and scurried back indoors. We also appeared to have unwittingly paid for a trip to the Milford Underwater Observatory so we hopped off the boat there and spent half an hour in a chamber 8m below the water, looking at the fishes through the portholes. And then our boat collected us to take us back to port.

To be honest, we were quite disappointed with the day - we'd been looking forward to seeing Mitre Peak rising out of the water ever since we'd booked the trip back in April but it was impossible to see anything properly through the swathes of fog. It's a bit frustrating knowing you're cruising right past it but can't actually see it! On the plus side, the weather conditions did add an eerie, almost supernatural, atmosphere to the whole place and caused literally hundreds of waterfalls to appear, cascading down the faces of the mountains. And Bowen Falls were mentally huge because of the rain too.

Annoyingly, by the time we approached Te Anau, on our three and a half hour journey back to Queenstown, the sun had come out causing some beautiful rainbows. So yesterday we did a 300km round trip in total - we were absolutely knackered!

Love you all x x x