For breakfast we joined our hostess, Jane in the main house. She chatted us up about our plans for the day and really encouraged us to make the drive to Milford Sound. We had previously dismissed it since we were doing the overnight cruise on the Doubtful Sound. We figured that doing both was unnecessary--you see one Sound, you seen them all, right? Thankfully, we took her advice and made the drive.
She warned us that some parts of the drive could get touristy since it's a winding two-lane road that dead ends at the Sound. We ran into two tour buses at Mirror Lakes but beyond that it was fine and wide open. The drive was ridiculously awe-inspiring and reached epic proportions after we went through a mountain tunnel at the summit. Unfortunately we weren't able to take pictures at that point because there were avalanche warnings everywhere so stopping wasn't permitted. We did go super slow on some turns so I could take pictures, but nothing would fit in the viewfinder of my camera!! It was too magnificent...too Lord of the Rings!
When we reached the Sound it was cold and windy and started to sprinkle so we only wandered around for a short while. There really wasn't all that much to do there unless you wanted to get on a boat. It was absolutely magnificent and breathtaking, but we didn't feel like we needed to get on a boat since we were going on an overnight cruise the next day.
On the drive back we stopped to check out some waterfalls that were across a short suspension bridge and spontaneously decided to follow the trail on a short 3-hour hike to a lake. Most of the hiking trails that we'd been on in New Zealand were perfect little paths with boarded walkways and trimmed edges. Jeremy was eager to get past what he considered "sanitized" hiking and see if rustic-off-the-beaten-paths really existed in New Zealand. The clear pathways quickly ended and soon we were doing a hard hike up, up, and up through some heavy bush. And even though I thought I was going to die because of low blood sugar we somehow made it to the top almost 2 hours later. We were rewarded with our own magnificent lake in the bowl of a mountain and a private avalanche show. Nobody else was there.
She warned us that some parts of the drive could get touristy since it's a winding two-lane road that dead ends at the Sound. We ran into two tour buses at Mirror Lakes but beyond that it was fine and wide open. The drive was ridiculously awe-inspiring and reached epic proportions after we went through a mountain tunnel at the summit. Unfortunately we weren't able to take pictures at that point because there were avalanche warnings everywhere so stopping wasn't permitted. We did go super slow on some turns so I could take pictures, but nothing would fit in the viewfinder of my camera!! It was too magnificent...too Lord of the Rings!
When we reached the Sound it was cold and windy and started to sprinkle so we only wandered around for a short while. There really wasn't all that much to do there unless you wanted to get on a boat. It was absolutely magnificent and breathtaking, but we didn't feel like we needed to get on a boat since we were going on an overnight cruise the next day.
On the drive back we stopped to check out some waterfalls that were across a short suspension bridge and spontaneously decided to follow the trail on a short 3-hour hike to a lake. Most of the hiking trails that we'd been on in New Zealand were perfect little paths with boarded walkways and trimmed edges. Jeremy was eager to get past what he considered "sanitized" hiking and see if rustic-off-the-beaten-paths really existed in New Zealand. The clear pathways quickly ended and soon we were doing a hard hike up, up, and up through some heavy bush. And even though I thought I was going to die because of low blood sugar we somehow made it to the top almost 2 hours later. We were rewarded with our own magnificent lake in the bowl of a mountain and a private avalanche show. Nobody else was there.
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