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Published: March 1st 2009
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Auckland to Queenstown to Te Anau to Milford Sound
Feb 23rd & 24th , 2009
The flight from Auckland to Queenstown was painless because our plane had GPS navigation instruments; we landed in cloudy fog which is typical around here. The Qantas flight could not take off and another flight could not land and had to be diverted to Invercargill; Qantas is cancelling its contract with Queenstown which is the portal airport for the wild west coast of the south Island.
We hired a medium size car and Terry drove on the “wrong” side of the road from the airport to Te Apau, it was a trying experience for me. After finding no vacancy at our first choice for accommodation we were very lucky to walk into the tourist bureau and able to book rooms for 3 nights and 3 tours before closing time, everything is booked because January and February are the 2 big tourist months in the south island of New Zealand.
Today, we left our one room cabin in a campground at 8 am and drove 3 hours in absolutely beautiful scenery to the harbour of Milford Sound. The road starts off in undulating sheep farmland, and then
follows rock strewed river beds. We crossed the 45th parallel, same as Vancouver Island in Canada and some of the route looked exactly like the road from Victoria to Tofino on the Pacific west coast of British Colombia. Then the mountains started first high, then higher and higher till we were looking at cliffs kilometers high some with glaciers.
The boat trip on Milford Sound was reminiscent of the fjord we saw in Newfoundland with granny and Jackie back in 2002. We were blessed with a glorious sunny day, for a spot that gets 7 to 9 meters of rain a year, I repeat, we were blessed. There were not even winds or waves on the Tasman Sea which we hear gets a good blow from the south coast of Australia; we are learning about new ocean currents, this one is the Humboldt, I think, an arctic current that cools the oceans around New Zealand.
Tonight we are staying in Manapouri, at the Lakeview Motor Inn; we have a patio table with a view on Lake Manapouri and the Cascade Mountains, same as my Aunt Odette in Seattle. We had dinner and are getting some rest because we are planning
to visit Doubtful Sound tomorrow; it is not as well known as Milford because it is land locked and cruise ships can’t get into it from the ocean. The Volendam was in Milford yesterday, it is the ship we will be joining next month for our cruise from Auckland to Hongkong.
Hope you are all well, Pat K. how are you recovering?
Elaine, how is David?
Boys and girls, are you keeping granny entertained?
Love to all
Ps: Terry took his ukulele out today and serenaded the motel quests who walked by our unit while I unpacked and did laundry, he is getting better at playing French Polynesian songs.
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