Next on our itinerary was to visit Milford Sound. Milford Sound is a —- We found that there is only one hostel there and many people go as a day trip from Te Anau, so we decided to stay there instead.
We had read online that there are many spots to stop at on the way to Milford Sound so we decided to leave fairly early and make a day off it. First we stopped on the side of the road and took a few picture of Ellington Valley. Next we stopped at the famous “Mirror Lakes”, which was another thing to tick off the check list; but I have to say, that we had seen much more impressive lakes in New Zealand. Then thirdly we stopped to look at the Chasm, which was a pretty cool stream of fishing water going through some large boulders.
Once we reached Milford Sound, we saw that there was literally one cafe, and a car park. This didn’t really matter because we had booked to do a boat cruise through the Milford Sound, on the website “book me”, which is essentially New Zealand’s version of Groupon. We boarded the boat and brought our rain jackets, as apparently it is the part of New Zealand that rains the most. Despite that, we were lucky enough to have a bright sunny day, although there was really strong winds. The cruise lasted around 2 hours, which took us past a shape mountain shaped like an elephants head, and up to the Tasman sea. When we turned around to head back, the driver told us that there was a few dolphins at the front of the boat. Everyone ran to the front, and there was probably about 10 dolphins all at the front of the boat playing following the boat, sticking their heads up and even jumping and flipping in front of us, it was so amazing to see! After that, the driver said that we would be driving into a waterfall and if you wanted to get wet to go to the front of the boat, as we were already at the front we thought surely we wouldn’t get THAT wet but we still put on our rain jackets. Next thing I know this boat is nearly fully engulfed by this waterfall. There’s wind gushing and water pouring and we couldn’t see anything at all. Once the boat came out we were absolutely drenched, it was still fun though! The cruise turned out to be so good, and for the cheap price we paid it was even better.
That evening we got talking with a couple, named Jake and Isabelle, who were our new roommates. They told us loads about places we are planning to go to, as they were pretty well travelled. The conversation led to where we were heading next, and it turned out that we were both going to be in Queenstown at the same time, and apparently in the same hostel too (Adventure Hostel). That evening we said bye to them, and said that we would see each other in a few days at the hostel.
Lee Teivans Travel Blog 