On New Years Eve, I took a tour out to Milford Sound. It is a fjord area that is extremely famous for its views. I decided to take a tour instead of driving out myself because I wanted the freedom to be able to take pictures and I had heard that the drive to get there could be a little bit difficult. (After taking the bus, for the most part the drive was totally fine, but once you got closer, there was a tunnel that was one lane only, so you had to wait for quite a while before going through, and beyond that the roads were very narrow and winding, so with all the buses going through there it might have indeed been a bit difficult).
But, I'm getting ahead of myself. There are many companies that you can choose from to go out to Milford Sound, many of them providing various packages for the bus, boat ride and helicopter or small plane rides. I chose to take the bus (which had windows in the roof...this made more sense once you actually get closer to Milford Sound) with a company called Real Journeys, which is apparently family owned and one of the oldest companies in Queenstown area (more info from the older gentleman I met). I was actually really pleased with this company. Before the tour, I had sent them an email asking if there was any way to reserve a window seat because I was a single traveller and I would likely want to take photos on the drive, and might be disappointed if I couldn't do so. They informed me it wasn't possible, BUT...when I got on the bus on the day of the tour, I found that they had reserved a seat for me next to a window right behind the "premium" seats. Lesson learned: it never hurts to ask, you might be surprised!
On the drive to get to Milford Sound, our driver gave us commentary along the way about the history, geography and other interesting facts about the areas we were driving through. We also made a few photo stops along the way, as well as a coffee/snack break at a cafe in Te Anau.
As I mentioned above there was one long tunnel we had to go through, but before going through it, we also got out to take in the mountains, and it is really hard to describe how incredible it was. None of my videos or photo could do it justice. In this area, it was really easy to tell why the tour companies put windows in the roof of the bus. Because the mountains were up to 1500m tall (about 5000ft) it wasn't possible to see just by looking out the normal windows. Getting out was even better though. Our driver pointed out a saddle area on the mountains that one of the first explorers was said to have climbed up over to find out what was on the other side. It was kind of hard to imagine climbing up that high.
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| Trying to use the bus as scale, but it still doesn't really give a good idea of how TALL these were |
Trying to give a better image, but still doesn't show it quite as it was.
If the video doesn't work, click here to watch.
When we arrived at Milford Sound itself, there were blue skies, but looking out into the fjords, there were some very low clouds which wasn't great but they said the views are nice in the rain, and the rain actually means you can see more waterfalls from the boat so I wasn't too worried.
**⚠️ Warning: Lots of pictures from here...**
Going into Milford Sound.
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Getting closer to that low rain cloud...
Let the waterfalls begin!
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If the video doesn't work, click here to watch.
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| And...this was about all we could see |
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| Not so happy about being wet... |
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| If the boat got close enough, you could see a bit |
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| Finally clearing that rain!! |
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| Seals!! |
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| That's what the boat went through...that big cloud... |
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If the video doesn't work, click here to watch.
And some final pictures with beautiful views and weather at the end of a long day on the drive back to Queenstown.
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| Back in Frankston |
New Zealand trip posts: | Part 1: Christchurch | Part 2: Queenstown | Part 3: Glenorchy and Paradise | Part 4: Wanaka | Part 5: Hikes | Part 6: Invercargill | Part 7: Moeraki Boulders | Part 8: Milford Sound
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