Milford Sounds
Once a upon a time in milford sounds…… after our brilliant relaxing christmas break we drove to milford sounds, On a journey of 120 kilometres that should take about 2 and half hours but including the 15 stops along the way and a 3 hour walk along the way it ended taking a little longer. We filled up in Te Anau to fill up on petrol and were off!! It was a beautiful drive with several stops along the way. Several Lake stops, an amazing river, before we entered ‘the divide’ where the road and river splits up where we did the Key Summit walk. There were some cheeky parrots who’d run up to et car in the hope of food – not shy! And had a great walk – a lot more like a gallop! The walk was continuously uphill but fortunately very shaded from the hot sun!! Every now and then you’d get a glimpse though the trees to the surrounding mountains, we were rising uphill so fast and you knew it was going to be impressive when we made it to the top! Which it was – it opened up and we could see for miles around us – and continued the final hour under the sun – unbelievably hot but once we were at the top it was really worth it – great views, as Im sure there are lots of pictures of!
Although it was late we drove to Milford to get some pictures while it was empty of mass tourists and find out where our Kyak place was! Unfortunately the campsite there had no room at the inn for us!! So we drove back up, through (a very dark hand carved tunnel!) and down a mountain and stayed at a D.O.C place in the car! Had a great nights sleep and had a packet of camping food for dinner – Chicken Tikka Massala! Was impressively good and contained all of our daily nutrients!! We were 2 happy campers and settled down for the night.
We awoke early – that’s all I remember! Sometime around 6…. cosy as caterpillar in sleeping bag!! James was great and drove us to the place while I tried made the most of every minute of cosyness!!
We parked up where we waited for the Kayak people to meet us. Just to explain – yes we were going to do the boat trip – and had picked out a nice little boat that got you up close, but then after talking to mike at christmas who thoroughly recommended the kayaking…. (you see it from on the water, a lot more dramatic, if you see dolphins you’ll never forget it etc!) and so we thought about it and rung up to book a sunrise Kayak! The one that was at 5am and you kayaked the full length of the sounds to the sea was booked and so we did the next best, one that did a lot of the sound just an hour or 2 later. In hindsight we were both sooo glad it ended up that way! Anyway got distracted!! We were soon in warm thermals, with waterproofs and kayak skirts on, had our last trip to the toilet! And removed the thermal jumper seeing the cloud breaking not wanting to die of heat at sea! We got on a boat while watching the only other kayaking company there showing their people for aages how to kayak – while on dry land. Our guy found it funny – they arrived earlier than us – and got out to sea a lot later whereas our company just told you what you needed and got on with it so you could get the most out of your time there! (good company still mike!) so we headed out on the boat, the sounds are amazing….. I wasn’t that fussed about going, but it would of been really sad to miss. On either side of you there are incredibly tall mountains and the sea comes down between them…. The pictures def show it a lot better than my descriptions!!
So we were sat into our kakaks, and just as me and James were into ours dolphins swum right right past us – they were soo close and beautiful. We were extremely lucky – it’s not something they see everyday, and the trip was already worth it! We paddled round to see some fur seals, which was great as we did get very close – but wasn’t quite as exciting for us as for the rest of the group who’d never seen them. It’s amazing how quickly the novelty of something amazing can wear off! But was still impressive. We then paddled paddled down to a huge waterfall, one of the few permanent waterfalls at milford, where you could paddle into it, and the power of it could blow you back out! Great to watch everyone get soaked! From there we paddled paddled paddled paddled further down, under overhanging mountains, was amazing looking up from your little spot on the water! The weather had cleared perfectly for us as well and it was a perfectly clear blue day to see everything. To MUCH relief, our kayak woman made a sail! We all got in our little raft and we were blown along, this was fantastic as the pain was already setting in!
A bit more paddling paddling we got to a beach and rested our arms – had a hot cup of orange and a bar of chocolate. would have been great if it wasn’t such a short break so soon we was back in our kayaks being pushed out to sea. We then made our way to the opposite side of the sound and started to make our way back to base, this was made harder/more enjoyable by the absolutely huge waves that started up and also a good wind behind us pushing us to where we needed to go. This still didn’t stop us both getting knackered quickly, we carried on till it seemed almost the whole group was defeated and the waves had calmed down then she showed us that if we all just hold our paddles up the wind will blow us in – now thats better! So the last 20mins we all glided back in with little fuss to finish of a great and more than impressive trip around Milford Sound! Really glad Mike recommend it even tho it was hard work it was pretty special!
We now had about a 5/6 hour drive ahead of us to Queenstown, you just don’t know how hard this is haha
To sum up! Lots of amazing scenery, the sounds were amazing, especially the dolphins that went by us!! SOOOoooo hard work!!! But loved it, especially the waves and sailing – a very successful trip!!
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