Milford and bye bye to the South Island

---

Well we had a fairly early start this morning for us, out for 8.00am. We were picked up by Deno, our coach driver and host for the day and then off to Milford Sound. Milford is a fjord and only after the second world war did machinery get up there to help forge out the road, up until then it had all been dug by hand, some feat. As we got further along the way the landscape became more and more spectacular with an increasing number of waterfalls and glaciers. It had a really misty moody feel with the swirling mists as we went up through the mountains but it was made all the more interesting thanks to our guide who pretty much gave us a complete history of the country, its geography, peoples and wildlife.

We arrived at Milford to have a cruise on one of the lake ships which was great to see brown seals on the rocks and also get right up close to many of the waterfalls. This was probably the best day we had had in NZ so far. It was a long day and we arrived back in Queenstown to see it had snowed up on the Remarkles and surrounding mountains and the temperature had dropped dramatically, it felt almost like Winter! We finished the day with a nice meal (and wine) in an Irish bar, Pog Mahones, overlooking Queenstown bay .

Next morning Ian set the alarm for 4.30am and phoned the hot air balloon company to see if our ride was on. It was so up we got in avid anticipation. We got in the minibus and went off round some of the other hotels to pick up more people. After about 10 minutes the driver suddenly stopped and got out to receive a phone call. He came back with bad news, the wind had picked up and so the ride was now off! Well what could be done, absolutely nothing, so we wait another day perhaps for that experience.

So it was goodbye to Queenstown and now back up the centre of the island to Lake Tekapo for a night in the local YHA. The colour of the lake was amazing, almost turquoise. We were 710m above sea level and the air seemed amazingly clear. We had also had some amazing views of Mount Cook as we traveled back up in the warm, which made up for missing these views on the way down.

So we were pretty much at the end of our week in the south island. Amazing scenery and utter peace and tranquility are my over-riding memories. We had spotted just one MacDonalds and one Subway in the whole of our week, that's when you know it is really quiet!

---