Milford Sound

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January 15th 2013

Published: January 15th 2013

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Stan and Annie

Road to Milford Sound

On 8th Jan we headed off for the 307km and 4 hour drive from Queenstown to Milford Sound with John and Andrea. This would probably be the longest I have ever driven in my life.

The Toyota Corrolla had been hired the previous day from Go Rental and it was to be our travelling companion for the next 26 days!

The journey is part of the experience of travelling to Milford Sound - a World Heritage Site.

We chose to go under our own steam rather than go an organised coach trip (expensive!) and it allowed us to stop whenever and wherever we wanted. It is only actually 50km from Queenstown to Milford Sound as the crow flies (or helicopter - if Annie had had her way!!) but we had to follow the roads around the mountains in a large loop.

We travelled past Lake Te Anau and through Takitimu Forest and Snowdon Forest towards the Tasman Sea.

We stopped at Mirror Lake, Chasm Walk and various other beautiful mountainous sites with breathtaking scenery. We drove through Homer Tunnel which cuts through the Darran Mountain range. It is 1.2km long and has a 1:10 gradient and

Mirror Lakes

it is an amazing example of 1950's construction and engineering.

John had already booked a cruise in Milford Sound with Jucy Cruises. (Cheap and cheerful!)

The boat was the smallest and oldest in the harbour which caused us some concern but it was marketed as 'smaller and closer to nature'..... as you see in the pics it certainly got us close to the waterfalls and seals.

The 2 hour cruise around Milford Sound up to the Tasman Sea was spectacular and completely enclosed by mountains. We were lucky and had beautiful sunshine most of the day but there was a severe weather warning for the following day which meant that the only road into and out of Milford Sound would be closed later that day.

We managed to get away ok and returned to Queenstown exactly 12hrs after we had left with no fall outs or divorces!!

Milford Sound is a long trip but DEFINITELY a must see!!

The following day John and Andrea flew back to Perth and we started our long, long journey back to Auckland.

Additional photos below

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Stan Carvell

Stan and Annie

'Adventure Before Dementia Tour!' Our travels began on Boxing Day 2012 and we headed off for a 9 month trip around the world - via New Zealand, Australia, Cook Islands and L.A Six months into that trip my beautiful and talented wife was offered a job opportunity in Perth with a visa that would allow us both to live and work in this fantastic City for four years. So, we cut short our travels and headed back to Perth ...... but we've always considered that this four year period was going to be an adventure and more of working holiday rather than us emigrating. We want to to enjoy every sing... full info