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Published: April 16th 2008
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Mel and Lauren
At the bar the night we arrived in Queenstown The night that we arrived in Queenstown, we got some shopping for dinner, came back to the hostel and made spaghetti bolognese for dinner. It was really nice, especially as we had some cheese to put on top of it!
Then after dinner, we got showered and dressed nicely, and went out to the bar that is attached to the hostel. It was the karaoke evening, so we decided to go and laugh at people doing it! We met up with Jess and another guy called Ron. We had a few drinks, and when the karaoke started, we watched a few people doing it, and then as we had to get up early the next morning, we went to bed at about 11pm.
Yesterday morning we woke up at 7am, and had breakfast and got our bag packed to spend the day at Milford Sound. The bus picked us up from just outside the hostel, and we headed out of Queenstown towards Milford Sound along a road called 'Devil's staircase'. It runs along the bottom of the Southern Alps, and there is a really pretty view over the lake on one side, and the mountains on the other side.
Lake Wakatipu
The lake and mountains of Queenstown It took two hours to get to the first stop which was a little town where we picked up some more people and stopped for breakfast. Then we had to carry on driving, as it was another two hours to get to Milford. During the second part of the journey, we stopped a few times at pretty places to take pictures, and take in the views!
When we got down to the wharf, we boarded the boat (The Pride of Milford) and were given lunch straight away! It was nice, but not anything amazing. We had seconds, and then headed out onto the top deck to see the sound.
We saw some amazing waterfalls, and the mountains are around 700m tall, and you are surrounded by them, and it makes you feel really small. The water was quite calm, so the boat didn't rock too much. We sailed all the way to the mouth of the fjord, and looked out to the open sea. Then we turned around and headed back towards the land, and were dropped off at the Underwater Observatory.
We went down a spiral staircase that takes you to the depth of 10m
Knobs Flat
A pretty part of the Fjordland National Park under the water. They have glass windows that give a 360 degree view out into the open water, and you can see whatever is floating and swimming around in the fjord. It was really cool, and we saw some really wierd and wonderful creatures!
While we were sailing back to the wharf, we saw a whole pod of dolphins, and they came to bowride on our boat! It was so cool! We could hear them all squeaking away, it was really sweet.
It took us four hours to drive back to Queenstown, so we got back to the hostel at 8pm! We had rolls for dinner, and after going on the internet, we went to bed.
This morning we got up at about 9:40am, and after a bit of breakfast, Mel, Jess and I went up the mountain in the gondalas and spent the morning doing the mountain-top luge...
... The luge basically consists of a go kart style track, which you speed down in what are basically tobbogans with wheels, and a handlebar! There is no accelerator, you just let gravity do the work! It was a load of fun!
This afternoon, we have
River
A beautiful river in the N.P. watched a couple of movies, and we are going to have spaghetti bolognese for dinner again tonight as we have to use up the mince and sauce that we still have. Now I will add some photos, and blog again probably in Kaikoura as we only have tomorrow night in Christchurch.
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