Milford Sound

Luckily I have friends who told us Milford Sound was the most beautiful place they had seen.  So we make the long trek from Queenstown to check it out.  They're right - it's so majestic.  It should be up there with the Grand Canyon and Everest as one of the wonders of the world.  So lots of pictures again.  (BTW, it's actually a fjord, not a sound...but I'll let you look up the difference between the two!)

That's a glacier on top of the mountain!

I put in this picture to try to give you a little bit of scale.  That's actually quite a large boat out on the water.  The mountains are as high as 5500 ft (over a mile high!) but because there's nothing around to put it in perspective, they only seem about a tenth of that.  For Steve, it's seeing a helicopter fly by - it's near the top of the mountain, and looks to be about the size of a fly.  Just amazing! 

We're lucky during our overnight trip - most of the rain occurs while we are sleeping.  Milford Sound is one of the rainiest places on Earth.  They tell us it receives more rain than the Amazon rainforest.

All those white "lines" in the mountains are actually waterfalls.

We have the sun peak out a little bit, so my camera is able to pick up a little of the true colors of the mountains.  You would think from the near vertical sides that they are solid rock, but they aren't - lots of greenery is growing.






And of course, there are hundreds of waterfalls, too...with the obligatory selfies taken with them.

Practicing my photo skills again - trying to capture the power of the waterfall.

Apparently Milford Sound has their own penguins, and this is their favorite beach, but they had already headed out so we missed them by a couple of weeks.  They said there are sometimes some stragglers, so we keep looking, but it looks like they've closed up the summer home.

There are no penguins in this picture.

This is why the mountains are so green - the trees literally grow on top of the rock.  A layer of moss will develop, and from there other plant life, and eventually trees.  There's no soil.












The boat travels quite quickly, and even Steve's hair is blowing in the wind.  The water is pretty calm though, so no worries about seasickness (though apparently there was a bad trip a couple of weeks ago).

Hey look - is that another waterfall?

Home, sweet home!  For one night, anyway.

We have a delicious buffet dinner, and have a wonderful time talking with our table mates. (A German couple and a Kiwi/Aussie couple - we were all around the same age - how did they know to seat us together??  The seats were assigned before we arrived.)  Then we head to our comfy cabin.  It's actually a little bigger than I thought it would be.  We have some noisy neighbors though...ask us and we'll tell you about it!   I don't think it's suitable for printing. : )  

The next morning we leave our cove and head out to the end of Milford Sound, to sail in the Tasman Sea.  The length of the Sound is a lot less than we thought - it takes us barely 15 minutes to reach the sea.

Beautiful sunrise!

Here are a couple more pictures where I'm trying to capture the magnificence of the mountains.  Again, a good size boat, and I'm not even close to fitting the entire mountain in the picture.  From now on when I see/read The Princess Bride I will think of these mountains as the model for the "Cliffs of Insanity."






Then there are three seals lying on the striped rock below.  I purposely didn't zoom in on them.

Wait - I'm not just trying to show another waterfall, am I?

Not only is Milford Sound incredibly beautiful, but it's also one of the most unique places in the world.  The rainwater creates a layer six to thirty feet deep on top of the salt water.  The fresh water is "dyed" by tannins from the plant life, causing the salt water to be very dark and cold.  This allows animals and plants that are normally hundreds of feet below the surface to be quite close to the top.  We stop by the Milford Discovery Centre, located in Harrison's Cove, in order to check out the underwater environment.  We're the only ones from our boat to elect to do this, and the day trippers haven't made it out yet, so we get a private tour.  Lucky!

The highlight of the Discovery Centre is the Underwater Observatory.  The display to the right shows the thickness of the windows.  I believe they are a type of plexiglas, not true glass (it could not withstand the pressure).

We descend the thirty feet down into the Observatory.  I should have taken a picture of the "room."  It's like entering a sci-fi movie.  I kind of worried HAL was going to take over the controls.  But through the viewpoints we are able to see lots of fish and plants in the "garden."  

When our guide joins us a few minutes later, she's excited to see all the fish by the windows.  Usually that means something large and/or predatory has disturbed them, and they are seeking shelter.  We keep gazing out the windows, hoping to spot a shark or dolphin (both had been seen recently), but like with the penguins, nothing.

Black coral - the name comes from its black skeleton.

There are no sharks in this picture.

We head back to the Visitor's Center in our (private) water taxi, and I can't resist one last waterfall picture.  Turns out this one is taller than our 46-story apartment building!  It also provides the power for the Visitor Center and surrounding area.

(Maybe) my last waterfall picture...

On our drive back to Queenstown we make a couple of stops.  After a few minutes' walk we visit The Chasm, where the Cleddau River has created a pothole effect in the stones as it runs through the rocks down to a gorge.  I believe this is about fifty feet deep (in the picture).

I don't think this hose is safe...

Then in the parking lot we get some New Zealand wildlife.  Kea - New Zealand parrots!  We had been warned about them.  They love to explore and manipulate items (and will work together to accomplish a goal).  They especially like to investigate man-made items - and if you leave anything strapped to the roof of your car, it will be destroyed by the birds in minutes.  





We also have to take our picture at the 45 Degree Latitude!  The only places it crosses land are in New Zealand, Chile and Argentina.  
 







I find another great sign, too (but the seal sign still holds the #1 spot).  It's not unusual to see this when you're driving in New Zealand.

Okay, one more waterfall picture - we didn't see these on the drive down; it must have been the rain last night that caused them to form!

How many waterfalls do you see?

And here's what the road back to Queenstown looks like.  This was a nice mini-vacation from our vacation!

When are we in cell service again??

Driving to Milford Sound

So a pretty boring title, but it's a beautiful drive!  When planning our trip, I originally thought we could make it from Queenstown to Milford Sound in about an hour.  At least, that's what it looked like on the map!  Luckily, I checked with Google....and discovered it was over four hours.  Eek!  You have to drive around a large mountain range.  I had to do some rearranging with our schedule so we would could make it fit.  At the time I hadn't booked anything yet (except our Milford Sound excursion) so I didn't have to worry about canceling anything.

Before we understood the road signs, we just stuck close to the car in front of us!

We ended up having to depart Queenstown soon after we arrived (but we're coming back!).  Part of the fun of driving is the one lane bridges.  Obviously, it's cheaper to build it one lane...but do they save that much money?  This is right on the outskirts of Queenstown, too, so there is traffic.  Luckily, we're finally able to decipher the road signs to determine who has right of way going on to the bridge, and safely navigate the ten bridges we cross.

So lots of scenic pictures in this entry, and nothing too exciting happened to us while we drove.  I would take pictures, then put my camera away, saying, "That's enough."  Only to pull it out again five minutes later. 

Mountains, lake, and sheep - quintessential New Zealand

The roads tend to follow either the coast or a lake.

I so wanted to have that little camper!

More mountains and lakes

For a change - mountains and fields

Our first waterfall!  We were excited, and stopped the car to take pictures.  Little did we know that by the next day this would be blase. 

Remember that one lane bridge I showed you earlier?  Well, that's what we were standing on to take this picture with the waterfall.  It made us very nervous, because we had to keep looking in both directions to make sure cars weren't coming - we wouldn't have all fit on the bridge at the same time!




We stopped the car for other pictures, too.  Here we're at an overlook of the Hollyford River, and viewing the work of the glaciers (from about 15,000 years ago).  The roads are actually built along the routes that the glaciers took.  Let them do all the hard work!

Then we stopped to get a closer look at the Hollyford River...no one fell in, though Steve was hopping around on the rocks to get some pictures.

No rocks were harmed in the taking of this picture.

We stopped here, too (and caused three other cars to also pull over - they wanted to see what we were looking at).  It's hidden in the picture by the clouds, but we could see a bit of a glacier on the top of the mountain.  This becomes important to Steve later in our trip...

It's hard to comprehend the scale of the Darran Mountains in these pictures, because there's so little in the landscape.  We left cell service about an hour earlier, and other than the road and a few highway signs, there was nothing man made...which was wonderful!  It's been a long time when I could drive for a couple of hours and not see a single restaurant sign, billboard, etc, etc!  Anyway, I had Steve stand at the edge of the road so you could get an idea of the mountain size.  I couldn't get both Steve and the entire mountain in the shot, no matter what I did.  Since they are about 6000 feet high (the mountains, not Steve), it makes sense.  I just found out you can go ice climbing on them....cool!  Put it on the list for the next trip!

We finally got to drive through the mountains that we'd spent three hours driving around.  It was a one lane (surprised?) road, through about 2 miles of mountain.  It was just carved through the rock - no pretty tile or even concrete to decorate it.  No lights, either, as you can tell by the picture.  I was having flashbacks to Stephen King's The Stand, when the character is trying to get out of the Lincoln Tunnel...

And then we come out to more beautiful landscapes!  I prefer this "tunnel" of trees.

We have our first sight of Milford Sound!  Again, your perspective is off, but there's a boat coming in to the dock (not our boat).

"Not Penny's boat"

Here she is!  This is where we'll be spending the night, along with 60 new friends!

Queenstown, Part 1

After our adventure at the airport, we're ready to explore Queenstown.  Luckily we landed on time, so we're able to go to the Queenstown Arts Market where we're finally able to see some local artists' work for sale.  The guidebooks mention a lot of handcrafted items are available in New Zealand, but up til now I've seen a limited amount.   I buy some earrings and a bracelet, but otherwise just enjoy looking.  It's held outside by the marina, but I forgot to take pictures.

This might be the bite when Steve ingests the e coli.  At least, we think it might be from here.  It took him two weeks after we returned before he finally went to the doctor to get checked out. 

Then we decide to try Fergberger, which was recommended to us by a Kiwi.  It must be good, because there's a 30-minute wait, but we entertain ourselves by taking selfies while in line.
I'm kind of surprised Steve can eat so much, considering what he has scheduled for later in the day.  He's checking off a bucket list item - bungy jumping!  It doesn't affect his appetite, though.

I did a lot of daredevil feats in my 20s, so I feel fine just being on the sidelines for this event.  Steve decides he wants to do the highest jump they have - 440 ft (that's pretty close to the height of our 46-story apartment building)!  I think the scariest part of the whole day had to be the bus driving up the mountain on the dirt road with limited guardrails (like they would stop a bus, anyway).  I can't believe there hasn't been an accident.

See the road on the left?  We are on the edge of a cliff, hundreds of feet in the air (that's a dirt bike course way, way below us on the right).  Pictures do not capture the scariness.

Once we arrive at the station (at the end of the hair-raising bus ride), we still need need to go out to where the bungy jump takes place.  That would be in the little "basket" on the right side of the picture below.  It's going to the platform "floating" in the middle of the gorge in the left corner of the picture.  The trip to the platform got everyone's heart beating fast!

On the left is the observation deck for people who don't want to ride out to the platform.

Here's a shot of the gorge - I assume it's at least 450 deep, since the bungy jump is 440 feet!


We're out on the platform with about a dozen other people, plus the two workers.  Here's Steve as his turn is coming up....









And here he goes!  Look at that form!  Even the East German judge gives him a 9.5.

And the after jump smile.

Steve's wonderful jump wasn't the highlight of the day for the crew.  Apparently, after you jump, you can jump a second time for free....if you're willing to do it naked.  And there was a girl from the group right before Steve's that was willing to do it.  She undressed under a blanket, but was strapped in to the harness completely naked.  They told her the cameras would not be broadcast back at the station, but I noticed they didn't say they would not be recording...  Everyone (workers and jumpers) was very professional while she was on the platform, but as soon as she leapt the male jumpers all ran to look out the window at the bottom of the platform.  She was 400 feet away - it wasn't like they could see anything.  

After the excitement of the day we headed back to our B&B.  Beautiful views from this one, too!