The next morning (after our night in Invercargill) we had to get up early to go to a place on the west coast called Milford Sound, renowned for it's natural beauty and known as the 8th wonder of the world. However, the weather conditions meant that we couldn't get over there. The road from Te Anau to Milford (the only road that goes there) is notoriously treacherous, with many avalanches and landslides per year, many of which can cross the road, and as there had been a lot of snowfall that night apparently vehicles were finding it difficult to get through. This being the case we had a change of plan and ended up heading back to Queenstown arriving there about 11.30am. Although it was a disappointment to not go, I think it was for the best in the end.

So at lunch time, my friends Jess, Neil, Harriet, Gemma, Dean and I headed over to the infamous Fergburger for lunch. Those burgers are ridiculously huge but SOOOOOO good! I had a "tropical swine" which I think has a burger, bacon, BBQ sauce, onion, tomato and pineapple, probably some more things too! I was absolutely stuffed afterwards, unsurprisingly! For the afternoon I went for a nice stroll around the lake, and it was absolutely beautiful surrounded by snow-covered mountains! In the evening a small group of us decided to go out and we watched the rugby match between England and NZ Maori (which we came soooo close to winning!) then at 2am we watched the football where England beat Slovenia to go through to the quater finals of the world cup, woooooop!!!!!!!!! YAY :D

The next day we did our trip to Milford Sound because the road was clear again, and I'm actually glad that we changed the days because the weather was far nicer. There was barely a cloud in the sky and it was really just stunning. I feel like I'm always using the same adjectives but words don't really do places like New Zealand justice; especially the South Island! Milford Sound was probably the most beautiful place I have ever been. It was a fairly long journey over there; about 3 or 4 hours with stops along the way. We stopped at some really cool lakes called the Mirror Lakes, whcih were perfectly still and we could see the reflection of the snowy mountains behind. We also stopped at an avalance zone and saw the effects of the last avalance they had there. It was pretty insane to see really! We then went through a 1.5km long tunnel through the mountain and went down the glacial valley towards Milford Sound, where we were to go on a boat cruise. Milford Sound is actually a part of the Fiordland National Park. I'll say what a fiord is as I'm sure a lot of you won't know what it is (I didn't know, so sorry for the explanation if you do know!). A fiord is a valley which was carved out by a glacier in the last ice age, so it is very deep and steep-sided, which has since been filled with water that has come in from the sea, so it is a bit like a lake but it filled with sea water. We got onto the boat and had a really good hot buffet lunch and made our way from the start of the Sound over to the Tasman Sea. All the way there were beautiful, high waterfalls, and we even saw some bottle-nose dolphins race the boat! On the way back inland we stopped off at an underwater observatory which was really interesting. The fiordland areas are very unique, because they get up to 11m of rainfall in one year (LOADS!) there is a layer about 1m thick of fresh water that sits on top of the sea water. This blocks out a lot of the light, making the conditions similar to those of roughly 60m below water in the open ocean. This means that coral and all sorts that usually grow much deeper can be seen from the underwater observatory, which is very rare! We also went very close to one of the bigger waterfalls and got sprayed by it before heading back to land.

We eventually got back to the hostel in Queenstown at about 8pm and were all exhausted! We just went out quickly to a takeaway to get something to eat then collapsed in our beds! The next day I had my first lie in in I don't remember how long! It was bliss; I woke up at 11.30am! Jess, Neil and I decided to go ice skating for an hour since it was cheap Friday, which was good fun. We then met up with some other people and played frisbe golf in the park by the lake which was really good fun, and highly amusing! I got 27 over par in total, which I was actually pretty pleased with because it was really hard and the person who lost got +39, so I was mid-way in the group. I didn't lose, yay!! hehehe. That night was the opening night of the famous Winter Fest in Queenstown, so we went out to see fireworks and some live music at 7pm, and there was a great atmosphere all night. My friend Gemma and I went to a couple of other bars and clubs, and by about 3.30am we felt the mighty Fergburger calling our names again! It was just what I needed :D We eventually got to bed at 4.30am and were in store for just 3 hours sleep before having to get up to get the bus to Christchurch! It may have been silly to stay out so late, but you can't not party on your last night in Queenstown. It is such a cool place and I was really looking forward to spending a bit longer there as the first time I was there I only had one evening there before I went down to stay with my friends in Dunedin. I was going to do another canyon swing as I was still wearing my wristband which would have made it only $20NZ, but I thought that since I'd already done it twice on my first go I'd be better off saving the $20 and doing something I hadn't done there yet. I really really enjoyed my time in Queenstown and I was really sad to leave! But oh well, there are more adventures to be had yet, and I look forward to seeing what they will be!

Love Joelle xxxxxxxx