Milford Sound and Te Anau

The Money Shot of Milford Sound, I get it just in time!

At Queenstown Sandra pulls coupons out from an inflight magazine for Burger Kings version of the Egg and Bacon Mc Muffin plus coffee and we enjoy a breakfast before heading out.

The drive from Queenstown to Te Anau is pretty but choked with traffic and a particularly slow Fiat Punto Black with (Jucy) a rental company on the side. It creates a line up of 12 – 14 cars while travelling 55-60 kph on 100 kph roads. This becomes a story in itself which can be told offline.

Our destination that day is Te Anau and the Top 10 park there. We unfortunately get put in an electric grass site for tenting, not something we’d recommend because we were surrounded by vans and small motorhomes.

Southern Discoveries

We walk to the ICentre there and book our 10:30 am cruise of Milford Sound with Southern Discoveries on the recommendation of the German couple. It’s not the cheapest, but, it has a naturalist on board and a larger boat with enough deck space for everyone. We head out early and take a couple of stops along the way, accounting for slightly over 2 hrs to drive 120 kms. And arrive just around 9:00 am as the 1^st cruise from Jucy is headed out. The morning is super clear, cool and the water is mirror smooth and I’m able to get a great photo.

The tour itself is great where we pull in under a garden overhanging the fiord, and tight into shore where we get to see a small gathering of penguins enjoying their private little beach. At

Spectacular Fiord

Glorious Weather

Penguins

Sailing back into the Fiord

another rock outcropping we see ‘fur seals’ which are seals like those caught off Canada’s east shores in early spring. We actually get out into the Tasman sea before re-entering the fiord and heading back. We’d highly recommend Southern Discoveries!

More Penguins

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