New Zealand's Fjordland National Park

---

Awesome day!! Started out in Milford Sound - full of clouds and gray overhead, but gorgeous high mountains and SNOW! We were all bundled up on deck, but got some beautiful pics. We offloaded over 90 passengers who are doing an overnight land trip to our next port of call. We pick them up tomorrow in Dunedin. We continued cruising in two more Sounds - Doubtful Sound (because the first boat captain thought it was doubtful that his ship could make it - thought it was too shallow!) and here's the Oosterdam sailing through, up to almost the end and then we turned around and sailed back out. The last one was called Dusty Sound and it was more of a circular sound where we sailed through the entire Sound. These are all glacier-carved valleys - the tallest mountain rises 5,000' above the level of the water and about 1,000' below. The day got a little bit sunnier and warmer, but sometimes the walls were so close to the ship it looked like you could reach out and touch each side as we sailed past. Lots of waterfalls and pine trees. Awesome indeed.

Some one got a picture of a penguin playing the water early this morning, but other than some porpoises and birds, I didn't see anything else.

Tomorrow, however, in Dunedin, we're going to a yellow-eyed penguin preserve, so I have high hopes of lots of penguins!

More later!

---