Katie's friend Olivia arrived in Christchurch to spend 10 days with us before returning home to Melbourne. We picked her up from the airport on the Saturday and it was a happy reunion after 2 ½ years. We'd already planned and booked to do a four day walk down in fjordland so Olivia hopped into the back of our trusty van and we headed off down south. We went via the two lakes of Tekapo and ( ) , where Olivia was a blown away by the colour of the water and surrounding scenery as we had been the first time we'd seen it. It was a long drive but we were booked to start the walk on the Monday and knew we'd need to stop a night on the way. That overnight stop we chose to take in the small town of Omarama. The campsite was well equipped and we pitched a tent for Olivia next to the van. We had a great pizza at a local restaurant and an early night.
Sunday we drove the rest of the way to Te Anau taking in the scenery as we went. We found it best to keep swapping over in the back as although it was comfortable laying in the bed in was rather nausea inducing on the winding roads!
We arrived in Te Anau at about mid afternoon and decided to go straight to the Department of Conservation centre where we would pick up our tickets for the walk. It turned out that Katie had miscalculated slightly and had actually booked to start the walk on the Tuesday so we had a day to kill! After settling in to a camp site with a beautiful view over the lake, we cooked up some food and discussed what we were going to do the next day over a game of Uno and a couple of beers. We decided to take the 2 -3 hour drive to Milford Sound and take one of the many boat cruises available on the sound. Olivia also let us know that she was concerned about her foot which she had injured the week before and didn't seem to be getting better. She wasn't sure she would be able to do the four day Kepler Track after all. We agreed to give it another day's chance to get better before cancelling.
Monday mornings drive on the road to Milford Sound we gorged on stunning scenery at every turn. We had to sit still in the road while hundreds of sheep were herded past, and stopped off to look at the beautiful 'mirror lakes' on the way. Arriving in Milford Sound we parked amongst hoards of tourists. We knew that there were several different companies operating tours of varying length and cost so we went to browse. We chose and paid for our 2.5 hour cruise and twenty minutes later we were aboard and leaving the harbour.
Just 30 seconds out and already we were confronted around the corner by the view of the length of the sound, as well as a stunning waterfall coming down from the cliffs to the right. The boat progressed slowly up the left hand side of the sound, out to the Tasman Sea then back in on the other side. We discovered thanks to the informative and actually kind of amusing guide that it was miss-named as a sound when it's actually a fjord. The difference being that a sound it formed when a river carves the valley and is then flooded by the sea, fjords are carved by glaciers.
The weather stayed clear for us which is practically unheard of in the region and made for stunning views right to the top of surrounding mountains. The boat took us up close to the most stunning waterfall where we stood on the bow to take it in (and get rather wet). Two and a half hours passed swiftly and before we knew it we were back in harbour. We thought the cruise was excellent and although the place was teeming with tourists, once on the water it didn't feel a bit crowded.