Having dashed up to Milford Sound we took our overnight cruise ship which took us for a short evening tour of the Sound before we had a paddle round in kayaks. Being in these tiny little kayaks surrounded by huge cliffs rising directly out of the water was very dramatic and watching the weather swirl in very quickly was quite impressive and a little ominous. We then had yet another camera incident. As we went back to the boat the crew decided to drag the kayak up onto the platform at the bag, a jerk and a tilt saw me dumped unceremoniuosly into Milford Sound. A bang on the nose and arm were the least of my worries as the camera died only 4 days into its life with us, we are definitely jinxed. The crew were awful in there customer care considering they had thrown me in the water but we managed to enjoy our evening playing scrabble with a nice couple, Stan and Sarah from Blackburn and I numbed the pain with red wine. The following morning the boat took us out to the ocean and we saw how it was that Milford Sound was not found by Europeans for some time as the entrance is completely hidden.

It was a nice trip but the kayaking incident and in particular the lack of interest by the crew did spoil it somewhat for us, when we disembarked we were then further wound up by the manager who intimated that he didn't believe our version of events. This really got the blood boiling so we ended up in the branch manager's office before getting a full refund.

On our way out of the Sound there was a torrential downpour and we witnessed the waterfalls which are created with the rain pouring down the sides of the cliffs into the Sound on all sides. We had a brief stop at the Mirror lakes which were fairly unmirrorlike in the downpour before a brief stop again in Te Anau to look for yet another camera, this time we decided not to bother with the hope of getting one fixed when we get to Sydney, we're used to not having one by now!