Jim from New Zealand Wild Escapes picked us up a bit before 7:30am, right on schedule. We then picked up two other tourists, Bruce and Nick from their hotel. Our destination for the day was Milford Sound. As the crow flies Milford Sound is only about 70km west of Queenstown, unfortunately there are no roads through the mountains so to get there we end up driving almost 300km. The first leg is south through the sheep and deer stations along the southern arm of Lake Wakatipu. We then turn west for a bit and at the town of Te Anau we turn back north through the Fiordlands National Park. Te Anau is a cute combination of farm town and backpacker & camper stop. We were able to stretch our legs there for a half hour or ... read more

The limo arrived a bit early and we were able to get going ahead of schedule. Our driver got us to JFK without any muss or fuss although the person who designed the roadways there must have had a unique design vision. However the signs were good and we got to Terminal 7 and checked in with the Qantas folks. We planned to check Pat’s bag (with all the heavy stuff) and carry on Connie’s; it’s good we planned things out as they asked what we were carrying on, and then weighted Connie’s bag to make sure it was under the 15 pound limit. We were able to watch our flight arrive from LAX and be turned around for our outbound leg. At the check-in counter we had been told the same aircraft would continue on ... read more