Return to New Zealand - November 2010

We opted for a slightly later start, leaving at about 8:30am. We headed south through the rain forest and over the mountains with no traffic at all, arriving at Wanaka around 11:30 for lunch.

Then we drove another hour to Queenstown, where we took the gondola to the top of the mountain overlooking town. We had some coffee, then Rick and Randy decided that paragliding looked like fun. 10 minutes later we were running down a hill and gliding out into the air. The flight took about 12 minutes and gave us some awesome views. We landed in a field right by the base of the gondola. We met back up with Fred and Katie, drove a loop around downtown, then headed south again towards Te Anau.

It took about two hours to get there, with some picturesque scenery along the way, with lots of sheep that Katie kept wanting to get a picture of. We arrived a Fiordland Lodge about 5pm and checked in. Fiordland Lodge is an awesome log cabin style building, with big rooms looking out over Lake Te Anau. 

We all headed to the main lodge room, met the staff, then stepped outside to the patio where we had drinks and canapés. Dinner was in the dining room, and was really delicious, with very friendly staff. Afterwards we were pretty tired and headed to bed.

We got up early, had a quick breakfast, and hit the road at 7:30am.

The road to Milford Sound is really beautiful, running along the lake for a while, then up through the mountains and down through a long tunnel. We got there just in time to catch the 9:15 boat ride, which only had about 15 people on it.

The weather was gorgeous, blue skies with just a hint of clouds around. We sailed all the way through the sound to the Tasman Sea, then headed back. Half way through the return trip they stopped the boat and put the nose up into a waterfall coming off one of the cliffs. Then it was back to the dock.

We then headed over to Milford Sound Helicopters where our pilot, Jeff, took us on an hour tour of the area. We saw mountains, glaciers, alpine lakes, a bunch of sounds and fiords as well as some spectacular mountain peaks, really amazing.

We had timed things perfectly, as the sound was starting to cloud over as we landed in the helicopter. Across the street we grabbed some sandwiches, then headed back to the lodge, stopping a few times along the way to take pictures.

After dinner we drove 5 minutes into Te Anau where we boarded a boat to the glowworm caves. You had to duck down as you entered, then a series of catwalks took us to a small boat that was pulled through pitch black caves with little blue glowing dots which were the worms. We're not sure if it was just an off night for the worms, or if they aren't really as amazing as we were promised, but there were more like hundreds of worms than thousands... (What sound do we make in the glowworm caves? Shhhhhhh!) Afterwards it was very late, so we went right to bed.