Days 69 and 70 - Queenstown and Milford Sounds

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We reached Queenstown, our first destination in New Zealand, on the afternoon of May 2. After the last few days of touristy hustle and bustle in the relatively bigger cities of Australia, it was a welcome change to walk around this quaint little valley town surrounded by mountains and lakes. We walked around the city center, grabbing veggie burgers for lunch, souvenir window shopping and taking in the beautiful lake front.

The next day we took an early morning coach-ferry-coach tour out to Milford Sounds - an amazingly beautiful area on the lower western coast of the island. The drive out to the sounds was phenomenal. Some online guides rank the drive as one of the 10 most beautiful drives in the world, and we could definitely see why. We passed vast mountain ranges (one was in the Lord of the Ring Movies as the Misty Mountains) and breathtaking waterfalls and lakes, the most stunning vistas included all three together! When we finally made it to the sounds we took a 2 hour cruise out from the sound to the Tasman Sea. The cruise was just as beautiful as the drive. As a bonus, we also saw some seals and bottle nose dolphins who swam alongside the bow of the boat.

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