Milford Sound, New Zealand

Thursday May 24, 2012

Milford Sound, New Zealand

Cloudy and rainy - High 50 degrees

On our way to Milford Sound. We had a long and full day ahead of us and unfortunately it was overcast and rainy today as we headed for a cruise down Milford Sound. But on the bright side we saw beautiful rainbows, like the one above and tons of waterfalls throughout the day. The drive to get to Milford sound was about 4 hrs, but it was very scenic. We traveled through beech forest, Hollyford Valley via the Homer Tunnel to Milford Sound, which really isn't a sound at all but beautiful fjords, just like you would see in Norway.

Our first stop was at Mirror Lake and the Chasm, which was a drizzly but beautiful short walk into the beech and fern forest. (See below photos)

We finally arrived for our cruise at 12:30 PM and by now it was raining really hard. We had a private room reserved for us on the second floor with a packed lunch waiting for us which consisted of a ham and cheese hero, apple, kiwi, cheese and crackers, juice and cookies, plus coffee and tea.

Despite the rain the cruise was fabulous. We saw waterfall after waterfall as we glided along the azure blue water and passed through many fjords. We got up very close to a few waterfalls and the pressure of the water and the wind was so intense you had to hold on for dear life or else you could have been blown away. It was really a lot of fun. We even got to see some seals relaxing on the rocks. Look closely at the photos below to see if you can spot them. The whole cruise was approx. 45-60 mins. Again it was a long journey to get here, but well worth the beautiful scenery we saw.

We arrived back to our hotel at 7:30 PM and we were all a little tired but we had some place we needed to be tonight. We made arrangements to visit the ice bar in Queenstown, boy oh boy, nothing like extremely COLD temperatures and a shot of vodka to wake us all up! There are a few ice bars in Queenstown and we chose the larger, newer one called Below Zero. We were able to find a 2 for 1 coupon in the local paper, so we headed over, turned in our coupon and proceeded to cover up with heavy Parker's and hoods, gloves and they will even supply the boots if you need them. The cost is $16 a person (with the coupon otherwise $32 each) and included one vodka cocktail. It was great and everyone was having so much fun. Everything from the bar to the glasses your drinks came in were made of ice... they even had a working gas fireplace! How cool is that? Very impressive (see photos below). It was a very enjoyable time and because of the low temperatures we could only stay for about 15 mins. So off to dinner at a local pub called "Pub on the Wharf" where we heard the beef wellington was great. And it was, plus we had some local entertainment and a nice fireplace while we enjoyed our meal. Another great day in New Zealand!