Blogs from Milford Sound, Fiordland National Park, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 4

TÄSSÄ PITÄISI OLLA LISÄÄ KUVIA MILFORD SOUNDISTA. JOSTAIN SYYSTÄ KUVAT NÄKYVÄT KAIKKI MUSTINA. TARKISTAN HUOMENNA, ONKO ONGELMA RATKENNUT ITSESTÄÄN JA KUVAT LATAUTUNEET. ... read more

(Day 701 on the road)After resting my tired bones from the nine-day hike I had just completed, it was finally time to pick up Suzanne from the airport in Queenstown. Suzanne and I have been very good friends ever since we met at university in Hong Kong many years ago, and it was great to see her again (we had last met up in Singapore some 12 months ago). She will be travelling with me here in New Zealand for the next two weeks, and we both have been looking forward to this for a while now. Suzanne's idea of fighting her jet lag (she flew in from San Francisco where she lives and works) was to haul herself off a bridge on a rope. Her choice fell on the Kawarau bridge bungee jump; while that ... read more

It was a little before 7:30 when we headed down the hill to catch our bus to Milford Sound. Pea and Lessor, our new friends from Denmark, joined us as we made the walk down. Walking down from the Hippo Lodge is certainly a lot easier than the walk up. We got on a Kiwi Experience Bus and realized it was a lot nicer and comfortable than the regular buses we had been riding over the last 2 weeks. These had foot rests and the chairs reclined. It was good since we would spend most of our day on the bus. As the crow flies Milford Sound is actually quite close, unfortunately for us we were not flying. A rather large mountain range impeded our path which forced us to take a three hour bus ride ... read more

There were many responses to our blog about the rescue from staff and passengers on board and family and friends back home. The wife of Staff Captain Alain, the hero of the day, wrote to say how proud she was of her husband. Alain told us that he talked with his 7 year old daughter and she asked him not to do that again! We also received an email from New Zealand TV asking if they could use our blog pictures in their report of the event. The story is big news here in NZ. There have been numerous newspaper articles as well as TV and radio reports. When we arrived in Dunedin the ship was met by many reporters from the local media. They interviewed Captain de LaCombe as well as Bernt Lϋchtenborg. Bernt said ... read more

Tripadvisor.com had rated Milford Sound as the No.1 destination in the world. A huge accolade to receive, especially as it was voted for by the people. Tripadvisor also gets over 1 million hits per week and coincidently Galway was rated in the top 40 in the same poll. Although our guide said that Doubtful Sound was better and bigger with less tourists, we still had to see Milford for ourselves. We checked the weather conditions the night before and asked at our campsite about going. They said the road was open again but don’t go to early as the roads would be icy and wait until the sun is up. We were going to go early but decided to hold off until 9am when the sun would be up and have started to melt the over ... read more