Day 120-122

On the 25th we had left this day free just in case the weather did not permit us to do our skydive. However, as it had gone ahead we had a day to wander around town and chill out at the hostel.

The following day we had arranged our Milford Sound trip. So we headed into town at 0630 to wait for the bus. It was the coldest day that we had felt so far at minus 2 degrees. Not the kind of day you would want to be waiting around for a bus. That's exactly what we did. We waited and waited and waited...... and got colder and colder! After several phone calls and 2 1/2 hours later we were informed our trip was cancelled. The company sent the Transport Manager to speak to us but he was an idiot; we tried to get a discounted trip for the following day due to the inconvenience and frost bite caused. However, his only offer was to send us on the trip tomorrow. We told him to stuff it; and booked with another company.

We spent the rest of the day infront of the log fire to try and get warmed up, but we ended up full of cold. That's what you get for booking cheap tours, it was the first one we'd done on a budget and we won't again. So we treated ourselves to lemon meringue pie.

On the 27th July we were up bright and early again, well maybe just early. This time the new company picked us up outside our hostel, so we were nice and warm. After 2 1/2 hour trip to Te Anau for a stop we started our real sight seeing. It was a packed day and we've left lots of description next to our pictures in the photo album. Instead of repeating everything we thought we'd add just a few other interesting facts:

• Milford Sound is part of the Fiordland National Park, which was founded in 1903. At that time it was just 900 hectares of land now it is over 1,237,000 hectares.
• The National Park is World Heritage Listed against 3 criteria. 1) It's geological valley was created by glaciers - 10,000-20,000 years ago. 2) It has many endangered animals, especially bird species. One of which we saw. 3) 700 different species of flora and fauna some of which can be found nowhere else on the planet.
• The Milford Sound is not actually a 'sound' but a 'fiord'. The difference is that a fiord is created by a glacier and a sound is created by the ocean. Milford Sound was named this before they realised it was created by a glacier.
• The Sound is home to many animals which would normally live much further out in the ocean. They normally live at 100m deep due to the darkness of the water, although in Milford Sound the water has a layer of tanin so the water appears deeper. Therefore the coral and fish live at around 40m.
• The Fiordland National Park experiences around 300 earthquakes a day. If the earthquake tops 3.0+ on the Richter Scale then it can be felt by humans.
• Just 7 years ago an earthquake measuring 8.3 hit the area and the seismic activity was measured as far away as Sydney.

Basically Milford Sound is an incredibly beautiful place and we had a fantastic day.