Day 10: Queenstown to Milford Sound

Day 10: Queenstown to Milford Sound
Friday, April 13, 2001

Today we were supposed to start with the optional Kawarau Bridge bungee jump after breakfast. However, it was all fully booked for the day, so instead, we would be doubling back the next morning to the original bungee site for the 14 of us who were going to jump off the bridge. Maybe it was just as well because, aside from it being Good Friday, it was also Friday the 13th.

After breakfast, we boarded our coach, and heard Anastacia for the first time on the coach in three days. We made a short stop in Arrowtown, a former gold mining village. Many of us took the walk through the site of the Chinese mining settlement. Not much remained of the living accommodations of the Chinese, many of which were extremely small huts made of stone.

We then boarded the coach for another long drive into Fiordland National Park towards Milford Sound. We watched some of the Nevis Highwire bungee jumps and tandem skydives as we drove. As we continued on, the scenery got more and more spectacular with mountains hovering above us. We made a lunch stop in Te Anau, also known as the Walking Capital of the World. Then it was back on the coach for the rest of our drive. We entered Fiordland National Park, the largest national park in New Zealand and the fifth largest in the world. It is also one of the wettest places on earth with over 7200mm of rainfall annually. However, we would see none of that during our stay. The weather was unbelievably perfect, with minimal clouds in the sky and dry sunny weather. We made several stops in the park to see some of the amazing scenery up close. We also encountered many small campervans and trailers, in which Gavin called them "road maggots" because of the way they would hog the road by driving very slowly and were often too large to pull over to the side to let passing traffic by.

We arrived at the pier at Milford Sound a little early, so we took a quick walk around the shore before the crew of the Milford Wanderer were ready for us to board the boat in what would be an overnight stay on board. This was by far the most interesting of all the accommodations we would have on the whole tour. We were all put into the same room below deck, with bunk beds in groups of two all lining the walls. Each group of two bunk beds were separated from the rest of the room with just a curtain. There was a large table in the middle of the room and showers and sinks through a doorway at the far end of the room. At least the separate shower stalls had locks on them, unlike at the Fox Glacier Hotel. The toilets were located upstairs outside at the back of the boat. Couples who had booked a twin share had their accommodations elsewhere on the boat. I would be sharing our little space behind the curtain with Fred, Mick and 2G, with Mick and I taking the bottom bunks.

We were served some soup and water, coffee, tea and hot chocolate. We then disembarked from the Milford Wanderer and boarded another boat at the pier for a cruise of Milford Sound.

All aboard for the cruise on Milford Sound

The cruise lasted from early dusk through to sunset. The views around Milford Sound were the some of the most spectacular we had seen during the whole trip. Mountains just hovered over us, some casting shadows across the entire fiord from one side to the other. There were many waterfalls as well, pouring out from the tops of the mountains and sometimes through cracks in the rocks. We even encountered some seals frolicking around on the rocky shore. When the sun completely set, it got very cold and many of us went inside to the cabin area where hot drinks were available. The water was also very choppy towards the opening of the fiord to the Tasman Sea. We turned around shortly after the sunset and headed back to the pier where we re-boarded the Milford Wanderer. Shortly afterwards, we left the pier and sailed out into the water. It was pure darkness outside when we anchored and had dinner served to us. The rest of the night on board consisted of card games, board games, drinking, and Michael strumming his guitar, providing some excellent mood music while floating on the water. When 10:30PM rolled around, we heard a loud clunk and a flash of the lights, to which everyone on board cheered on cue. The generator had been shut down for the night and wasn't going to be turned on until 6:30AM the next morning. Shortly after that, most people had gone to their bunk beds, while those remaining migrated upstairs to the enclosed dining area, drinking up the last of what was around, as drinks stopped being served when the generator was shut down. There was only a handful of us left, with even the crew having all but disappeared. I eventually went back downstairs, where 2G was already asleep, and climbed into my bunk bed for the night.