Milford Sound

We had great hope for today's cruise when we woke up. The cloud cover had lifted and we could see the full glory of the mountains around the place, and we immediately understood why these were used for the Lord Of The Rings movies. Though we could not really be sure if we were in Mordor (some of the peaks do look evil) or in Gondor/Rohan (the mountain range that housed the beacons), the answer is possibly both.




The drive to Milford Sounds sported some really stunning views of sheep farms, creeks and alps ...






Though very picturesque, the arrival at Milford was a bit disappointing since there was a very dense cloud cover present, but as it rains 6m/year hear and 2 days out of 3, the odds were not really on our side. And besides, it is still amazing to see even with the clouds even though a few warming rays of sunshine would have been nice. We are about 45 degrees south, so this is comparable to spring in the very north of Sweden (which means not that warm, 15 degrees!)

We managed to get on the ship that was going to be home for the night and started our
cruise out wrapped in our warmest clothes and everyone, including us were soon oooh-ing and aaaah-ing at the cliffs, waterfalls and the peaks breaking through the clouds. The biggest aaah was when we went under one of the waterfalls and we all got soaked (it might have been an aaaarrrggghhh but I cant be too sure, I was running at the time). Once we'd gotten into our dry clothes it was time for the water sports activities, the tally was Speedboat-18, kayaking 6, swimming-0 (12 degrees in the water). We went for the speedboat which was also a little nature and wildlife talk and spotting, so Vaniah finally managed to see some penguins and, most importantly, we kept dry.

Back on the boat it was time for dinner and of course attending the bar for a little while, before getting ready for the adventures of tomorrow (which we'll of course tell you about as soon as we recover from them).