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Published: April 1st 2008
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We'd been told to get going up to Milford Sound early to prevent being stuck behind all the tour coaches, so as soon as the sun was rising we looked out of the window to see beautiful blue sky and then promptly fell back asleep. At a more reasonable hour, still early, we headed on the 2hr scenic drive through the mountains, passing beautiful lakes and many many tourist coaches. On reaching the port where the cruises leave from it was pretty nippy so we togged ourselves up with our wooly hats and gloves and headed to find a cruise. We basically got on the next cruise that was leaving and only had to wait about 20 mins and we were only sharing our boat with a handfull of tourists, mainly japanese. As we headed out of port on our 2hr trip the scenery was beathtaking. We cruised our way towards the ocean where we were followed by a group of bottle nose dolphins whilst being told about how the sounds were formed and seeing all the beautiful waterfalls. The highlight of the trip was when the boat reversed into one of the waterfalls with all the japanese at the
back of the boat, they all got soaked and we got a bit wet too but was worth it for the pics we got. After the trip we headed back to te anau stopping along the way to view some of the lakes and waterfalls and finished with a short nature walk.
The next day we headed to Queenstown which is a lively adventure town where you can do basically any extreme activity. Unfortunately the weather was pants so we decided to give the bungy jumping a miss this time and decided to catch up on some washing instead but if we had a bit more time/money you could easily have great fun in the town, maybe next time eh. We then headed out to Arrowtown about 30 mins from Qtown, this time the sun was shining and we decided to do a healthy 3hr walk up a big hill before having a mooch around the shops in the beautiful quaint town. We then passed through Wanaka again, before heading west towards our next big stop, the Glaciers. It was a bit far to drive in 1 day so we decided to take our time which was a good
idea as the route we took had sooo many walks and stopping points, the highlight being the blue pools which were icy cold mineral pools which were ........you guessed it very blue!
Our plan was to see both Fox and Frans Joseph glaciers but the clouds were soo low you were lucky to see your hand in front of your face, OK it wasn't quite that bad but you get the idea. We headed first to Fox which involved a 45 minute walk which was pretty cool as it was through a valley which the glacier had formed a very long time ago before it started to melt so the rocks around us were very unstable and could have fallen on us at any time. Thankfully we made it in 1 piece and the glacier was pretty impressive, well what we could see of it was so we took a few pics then headed back and made our way to lake Matherson where it is possible to get a beautiful reflection of mount cook. We did the 1 hr walk and of course we could see a reflection of some clouds so we just used our imagination to see
mounts cooks reflection and when we get back we may even use photoshop to recreate our image 😊. We decided to do the short walk to Frans Joseph glacier and it looked very much like Fox so again took a few snaps before heading to our van site to get a good night sleep. On waking up the weather was great so we headed back to Frans Joseph to get a better look and it was a lot bigger than we had imagined the day before. We again took some pics and wished we had booked a tour to actually walk on the glacier but again time/weather/funds dictate that we have to add it to our future to do list.
We then started our loop back towards Christchurch where we would head north but not without stopping at Arthurs Pass which is a beautifull little town in a picturesque valley and some lovely walks to waterfalls etc. We also managed our first night in a conservation campsite which is like half the price of a normal site, no elec but don't realy need it in the van everyday (only realy for the TV!). The next morning we headed to
Christchurch to restock supplies at the bigger supermarkets ready for our next adventure which will hopefuuly involve lazing in hot springs and a bit of whale watching!!
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