Day 65 - Sat 3rd Jan - Milford Sound

Managed to set the alarm for the correct time today and actually make it on to the bus!

It was quite a long drive from Queenstown to Milford Sound (about 5 hours), and we made a couple of stops along the way, photo stops mainly such as Mirror Lakes. It was a very long windy road through the mountains to get there (aparantly the 'Misty Mountains' for those Lord of the Rings fans amongst you!), and I started to feel a little bit queasy - not a good time to be developing travel sickness!!

We finally arrived at about 1pm just in time to hop on the boat (more like a ferry) for lunch and a cruise along the Sounds - which apparantly are not sounds at all but are fjords. What's the difference between a fjord and a sound I hear you ask. No, you didn't? Well I'm going to tell you anyway. FJords are carved out between moutains by glaciers, sounds are carved out by the sea. Something like that anyway. So Milford Sound is in fact Milford Fjord as it originated from a glacier.

The boat ride took about an hour and half and went out to the mouth of the sounds / fjords to the Tasman sea and back again. There are aparantly dolphins in those waters, but nope, no dolphins for me again. We did see seals on the edge of the rocks though.

The scenery was very nice, but not quite as spectacular as I was expecting it to be from all the reviews and feedback. The weather wasn't great that day so perhaps it looks more impressive when the weathers better and the water is more still.

On the way back I decided to be a bit extravagent, and er, got the helicopter back to Queenstown. This did cost a small fortune, but I justified it to myself by the following:

- It cost about the same as a sky dive (when you include the DVD packages), which I had just had refunded.

- I like helicopters

- I was regretting not doing the heli-hike in Franz Josef

- Helicopters are cool.

- On the two other occassions I have been in a helicopter, we flew up, looked at something and flew back again and it took about 10-15 mins. This was 45 mins and took me to an actual destination.

- It was only 45 mins!! Not a 5 hour bus ride (feeling queasy on windy roads).

I felt that was enough justification. The view of the sounds were amazing from the helicopter (better than the boat), we flew right in between the moutains (very close!) and were up in the clouds for some of it. Then he actually landed it on top of one the mountains so we could get out and take some photos, then hop back in and fly off.

It was a good end to the day and made up for the cancelled sky dive and missing the bus!