I had set my alarm for 5:50am so that I would have plenty of time to get ready and check my email before we needed to leave at 6:30am but of course, my alarm didn't go off so Alyssa woke me up at 6:10am. This left me with barely enough time to get packed up and throw everything in the car before we needed to go. I hate being frantic like that in the mornings- I'm a terrible morning person as it is. It's only a 50 mile drive to Milford Sound but everyone had said we needed to allot two and a half hours for the drive because it is a windy drive with slow cars and one way tunnels that can cause a 15 minute delay. We set off at the right time but about 40 minutes into the drive, Alyssa read something on one of our pamphlets that said to be sure to fill up you car with gas before leaving Te Anau because there were no gas stations anywhere on the route nor in Milford Sound. We only had a half tank of gas when we set out and our car got the worst gas mileage, so I knew we probably wouldn't have enough. I was about to turn around when Alyssa said she didn't want to miss our cruise time which certainly would have happened if we had to drive 40 minutes back to Te Anau and then 2 1/2 hours to Milford Sound. I paused, but decided to take our chances. The entire rest of the drive, I was picturing how we would need to hitchhike from wherever we ended up running out of gas and buy a few gas cans so that we could bring enough gas back to get our car out of the middle of nowhere wilderness. Luckily, we didn't have anything else planned in our trip and still had a few days before our flight so if something went wrong, we'd have time to figured it out.
I didn't get much of a look at the countryside as we were driving since I was trying to focus on driving quickly through some treacherous turns but I made a mental note to checkout out on the way back when Alyssa would be driving. The drive was timed well and we made it to the tunnel right as it was our directions turn, so we didn't have to wait at all.
When we arrived, we had about an hour before our cruise, so we walked to the cafe to get sme much needed coffee. As soon as we stepped out of the car, we were attacked by sand flies. I applied tons of bug spray it they were undetered so I put on my jacket and hood and covered every inch of skin besides my face. They were unbelievably annoying and came in swarms of hundreds of bugs dive bombing your face. Apparently, it's only the females that attack you; they are looking for a blood source to feed on to get nutrients to feed their young. Disgusting. We grabbed our coffee (they charged us $1 extra for a to-go cup making it a $5 cup of coffee...really?!?) and headed to the boat. We had booked the cruise through Jucy, which was the same company we rented our car from because they gave you a "buy one, get one half price" deal if you had rented a car from them, bringing the cost down to $37.50/each.
Once on board, we headed to the top deck so that we could get the best view of the scenery as we cruised through the sound. A "sound" is actually a canyon created by a river which back fills with water from the ocean whereas Milford was actually created by a glacier and should be known as a fiord. It seemed that although this was a known fact, no one was going to change the name at this point.
The hour and a half cruise was filled with beautiful views of the mountainous landscape. There were waterfalls, hanging canyons and seals to see throughout. This was one of the things most people recommended that we do in New Zealand so I was a little surprised that there wasn't more to it. Don't get me wrong, it was pretty and very interesting but I didn't find it amazing or awe inspiring. I don't think I would highly recommend it to other people, especially if they were just there on a quick trip.
After the cruise, it was only 10:45am. Thankfully, I had spotted a small local gas pump and was able to put $10 worth of gas into the car which I knew would be enough to get us back to civilization. Since that was sorted out, we had plenty of time to make stops along the drive back to Queenstown. First, we stopped at "The Chasm" which was a gaping hole through the rocks beneath a waterfall. It was really cool to see. There were tons of areas where basketball sized holes had been cut into the rocks by other smaller rocks swirling around in the water and it crashed downwards. The area was also very jungly and there was some really neat foliage to check out.
Next, we stopped at "Mirror Lakes". Unfortunately it was a bit of a windy day, so the water wasn't still and the mirror effect was disturbed, but you could tell that on a clear day, the refecton of the mountains would be perfectly visible in the lake.
As we drove back into Queenstown, we had to stop and take a look at the lake just outside the city. I have really never seen a lake with water so blue. It is absolutely breathtaking.
Once back in Queenstown, we checked in at "Bumbles Hostel" again, which we had stayed in the day before. We ended up back in the same room, which was convenient since we already knew how things worked. Happy to have internet again, we settled in for the night and decided to watch a movie in the common room and get some reservations completed for Australia. Of course, the internet connection was moving so slow it was agonizing and the common room only had a VHS player with some really old movies. It took us about 20 minutes to figure out the TV set up and get a movie working but finally we were watching "Mission Impossible" from 1996. I can't believe that movie is that old! Alyssa hadn't been sleeping well the past few nights so we decided to forgo our earlier plans to go out and head to bed.
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