Hooray I'm finally ready to post about our time at Milford Sound. Although the drive there was gorgeous and we had a great time, this was the object of our day trip.
As I mentioned in my last post, the weather progressively worsened during the day, which was great because it made the waterfalls look great but it also got much colder. You will see me get more and more bundled during the cruise the sound.
This first picture is just as we were leaving the docks. Notice I'm just wearing a t-shirt at this point?
As we pulled away from the shore, Mom decided it was way too cold to be outside so she camped inside on the lower deck. I made about 10 trips up and down trying to figure out what Dad wanted to eat from the pita pit inside and trying to find some hot chocolate for mom. Lol.
This is a great picture of my Dad, isn't it? This is us looking off the back of the boat.
Here are a couple pictures of the really cool surroundings we were able to see. The first is called "Bridal Veil Falls". I liked this right away because of the name since there is another Bridal Veil Falls in Provo canyon (I think) back home. The second reason I really liked this waterfall is because you can really see the erosion the waterfall has caused to the side of the mountain. You can't even see the water running right in the middle of the picture because it has cut so deeply. Cool, huh?
This picture is of a mountain that is nicknamed "Mount Lion". I can't remember the actual name of the mountain haha. I could actually see it as we were driving by - the right side of the picture is he hind quarters of the lion. As we drove around the side, the mountain actually juts out the way the back legs would if the lion were lying down. The left side is the head and mane of the mountain.
As we made it farther through the Sound, we came upon Mitre Peak. Brian insisted that the part of Mitre Peak shown in the picture below was the "mitre", which is named after a priest's mitre hat in the Catholic church. I tried to tell him it was the actual peak above, but he wouldn't have any of that until we heard additional information from the tour guide. Well, by that time, the clouds had thickened to the point that you couldn't see the peak clearly, so the third picture down was the best I could do. You will have to google Mitre Peak to see a clear picture of it :)
At this stage, I opted to add the sweatshirt because it was getting pretty cold. As we reached the edge of the Sound and turned around at the opening to the Tasman Sea, it was also really windy. So windy in fact that Brian lost his BYU hat! He was so sad - it just blew off into the sea forever.
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| Me where Milford Sound connects to the Tasman Sea |
On the return back to the port, our tour guides took us really close to some cool sights. First, we saw a whole bunch of seals curled up next to a waterfall. The were all cuddled up and looked just as cold as us!
Then we went almost directly beneath a waterfall. The mist was splashing up all around us - pretty fun! This picture was taken as we started pulling away from it because it was the only time we weren't in a huge crowd of people. But it was spectacular.
Look who I found sitting inside keeping warm!
Since the cruise was almost over, I made Mom & Dad go outside for some pictures so they could remember they were here haha.
This picture has "Mt. Lion" in the background. Look how cold it looks out there! I think this was the one time Mom was completely justified in wearing about 5 layers of clothing...
Here we have a waterfall in the background. It's just before we got back to the port.
The tiny waterfall in the background of the picture above was actually quite large once we got close to it. Here is Brian in front of that same waterfall. We found out that this single waterfall supplies all the water and power to the people living at Milford Sound. I thought that was really interesting.
We had a great time here even though it was really, really cold by the end. Definitely one of the highlights of the trip so far.
When we arrived back at Milford Lodge for the night, we realized it was going to be super cold that night. Because I delayed booking a room for too long, Brian and I were supposed to camp that night. Well that was going to be miserable due to the weather conditions so we decided to brave the really long drive back to Christchurch that evening rather than waiting until the morning.
The drive wasn't incredibly eventful. Because we were driving late at night, we weren't able to see Mt. Cook - again - and we didn't stop by the site where Edoras was filmed in Lord of the Rings. But we did pull over to look at the amazing stars and we found the Orion and Southern Cross constellations - which are not constellations you can see from Utah. Also, we saw hundreds of rabbits along the side of the road. Unfortunately, we hit a couple and Brian was very sad. So sad, that I had to drive for him for a while. What a sweetheart he is!
We made it home safely around 3 am and got a little sleep. And that was the end of a very long, but amazing day.
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