Another cold night and frosty morning, we awoke to find that we had been frozen into our campervan. Eventually breaking free, we could now see that our very chilly night was well worth the effort the night before. The scenery that we were unable to see last night, now revealed a mountainous landscape and a nearby mirroring lake. Even though Queenstown is known as the adventure capital of the world, we decided to use it as more of a stepping stone to Milford Sounds, as well as just to relax amongst some of the landscapes many views. The City itself (although small) was very beautiful and probably the only place we had come across other than Sydney that we could see ourselves living, in spite of the cold too.
The day we went to Milford Sounds, we had to be up by 5:30am to catch our tour bus from town, exiting out DOC up a steep slope in the frost was quite scary but we shouldn’t have worried as Fred pulled through and got us to our pick-up location on time. Our four and half hour journey to one of the scenic wonders of the world allowed us to catch up on a little shut eye, which was only interrupted on the odd occasion to see some magnificent views. The trip to Milford can be pretty impressive wet or fine, we were lucky enough to have another really sunny day, which meant clear views of what Milford had to offer. However this meant missing the many waterfalls that would have cascaded from the Fiords surrounding cliff faces had it been raining. The guided boat tour lasted two hours and we saw loads of amazing things you can’t see anywhere else in the world. With one last look at Mitre Peak, we began our long journey back to Queenstown and still thankfully in the luxury of a coach (little things…). Back in Queenstown, we met up with Katie and Dean who we met in Gili Air, it was great to see them both again and ended up having our first proper night out since being in New Zealand – getting in at the crazy time of 1:00am. We awoke the next morning with a knock at the door from the local council! We had parked in a town car park (tut tut) and were told to move on. Grateful to not receive what we thought could have resulted in a potential fine, we packed up and moved on sharpish. On route to our next stop Lake Pukaki, we quickly visited the infamous A.J. Hackett bungy jump. Infamous, not only because it was the first bungy jump to be rigged up in New Zealand but also because the jump is from a bridge that spans the Shotover river. Having never been man enough to step up to the challenge, I very nearly changed my mind had it not been for the expense. I think the near change of heart was either due to me finally finding my balls, or that I had just watched an 11year old girl jump, that I felt obliged to man up. Glad that Emma didn’t decided to do one and show me up, we continued on the rest of journey to Lake Pukaki. Arriving at the lake, we once again found that our potential magnificent view of the mountains, were hidden by N.Z. great white cloud. Fortunately for us, just by nipping round the lake by 15km and heading for the town of Mt Cook, we were able to find our view of Mt Cook (the tallest mountain in N.Z. and known to the Maori’s as Aoraki) in the distance. We camped up for the night at nearby campsite, so we could have the view from Fred’s windows, and so we could venture near the mountain first thing in the morning. Another rainy day in New Zealand meant that we had to sack off the walking around Mt Cook, which was a shame because at the foot of the mountain a couple of scenes from the LOTR films were shot.