In the middle of the week Mari and I went out to celebrate her coworker’s birthday. Tania was turning twenty-one and she was about to go on a trip so her birthday party became a semi-going away party as well. We met everyone at Rydges and took a cab up to one of the girls’ house. However, the roads were REALLY icy and the cab driver refused to drive up the massive hill to get to the house. Coming from Minnesota, I completely understood. Taking that last sentence into mind, I can’t believe I have never had trouble walking up an icy sidewalk. I never thought the Uggs I was wearing would disagree with the sidewalk so much, but they did! I had the hardest time trying to get up this hill. I would literally start sliding so I had to grab on to some friends hands just to stay standing! I eventually made it to the middle of the street where there was sand to walk on but once we got to the drive way, there was no more sand. With some more help, I finally made it to the party safely. It turned out to be a chill night, we all just got together and had a couple drinks while hanging out at that house. Mari and I caught a ride home pretty early from a couple who also work at Rydges. All in all, it was a tame night but nice to go out for a change.
This up coming weekend we planned a trip to Milford Sound, we have heard a lot about Milford since we have been in New Zealand and we were anxious to see it for ourselves. The only thing we had to worry about was the weather because it was always hit or miss in Milford. On average Milford gets 180 rain days a year! We left Queenstown on Friday around 5 o’clock. We picked Liz up from work and headed to Te Anua, the last place of civilization and halfway point between Queenstown and Milford. On our drive, we noticed how fast the sun went down. It was only 7pm, but it felt like 11pm with the dark night sky and stars shining! We ended up getting a cheap hotel and snuck Mari in. It worked out perfect because the room was set up for three people, with one double bed and a single bed. We kept talking about how nice it was to have a fully heated bathroom! The next morning we got up early and made some breakfast. We couldn’t help but sit outside as we ate our breakfast and took in the amazing sunrise! The drive to Milford was gorgeous! The weather was nice and sunny with only a little bit of clouds. Some highlights of the drive included: various videotaping, stopping a couple times for pictures, getting car sick with the unbelievable windy road, and a massive tunnel that was 1km long! Known as the Homer Tunnel, it looked as if it might collapse on us! The tunnel was built back in the 1950s and I’m pretty sure there hasn’t been much work on it since. It is a one lane tunnel that has dim lights on the ceiling and reflectors on the sides to help guide you. There are a set of lights outside each end of the tunnel that tell you when its your turn to go. However, these lights can make you wait for up to twenty minutes in a highly prone avalanche area. It has been discussed to just widen the tunnel into two lanes but knowing kiwis, it will take a while for that to happen. Either way, we made it through safely. As we arrived in Milford, the clouds started to roll in but only partially, which made for great rays of sunlight beaming on the mountains. When you arrive in Milford, you are taken back by the breathtaking atmosphere and landmarks. Dominating the skyline is Mitre Peak, a 1692m pinnacle of rock that forms the world’s highest sea cliff and one of the most photographed mountains in New Zealand. It has an almost eery feeling to the place because even if someone was yelling at the top of their lungs, they would seem unimportant to the epic landmarks surrounding them. It is as if you are walking among sleeping giants.
We planned on taking a 90 minute cruise around milford to explore the sites. Our boat cruised along the glass-like water taking us through the sound out to the Tasman Sea and back. The guide of the cruise would come on the load speaker every so often to enlighten us about the sites before us. One interesting fact is that the average depth of the sound is 330m of water. However, 3 meters of that water is freshwater from the rainfall each year. This creates multiple ecosystems in one area! Mari believed that some of the footage from the Lord of the Rings was filmed here, possibly the part with the elvish boats? Along our cruise, we were hoping to spot some penguins but only found some seals. There is a certain point known as ‘Seal Rock’ that inhabits seals all year round. One outstanding highlight of the cruise was Stirling Falls. This massive waterfall drops 146 meters from a beautiful U-shaped hanging valley carved out between the mountains. Stirling Falls is the second largest permanent waterfall in this national park that is fed by the glaciers situated in the mountains behind it. Our cruise was able to get so close that I felt as if I could touch the water! As the cruise came to an end, I was glad that we decided to do it. Seeing Milford from the water is how it should be done.
Since our cruise got done around 1pm, we had plenty of time to go on a tramp and take in the more sites. We talked to a guy working at the i-site and he told us about possible hikes we could do. We decided to go on a hike to Lake Marion. It was about a half hour drive back towards Te Anua and suppose to be a 3 hour round trip hike. The only thing we had to worry about was getting back before 5pm so we wouldn’t lose sunlight. As we started this trek, we didn’t think it would be too bad. We stopped constantly to take photos of the rainforest-like surroundings and rushing waterfalls. After about twenty minutes, the trail began to get rougher. With a consistent climb up loose rocks, we really felt the workout... We would come to part of the trail where there was literally a riverbank of just rocks and we would have to look for the little orange triangles to guide us to the trail. After one of the riverbanks of rocks there was a straight up vertical wall of rocks, we had to use various tree roots to help pull us up. We kept thinking, I hope this Lake Marion is worth the hike! As we were getting closer to the lake, all I could think about was jumping in. It was the one thing pushing me to get there faster. Then finally, we had arrived and the view was breathtaking! With the blue sky beaming above, sun perching over the tips of the mountains shining down on this gorgeous lake that looked like glass and reflected the views from above, the cameras didn’t stop snapping. We got as many photos as we could before the clouds rolled in. We each took a turn taking a photo on this massive rock located at the edge of the lake. While taking photos, we all cooled down and realized that jumping in the glacier-cold lake probably wasn’t the best idea. It would have been nice to stay longer and explore more but we had to hurry back before it got dark. The whole tramp took a little over two hours and it was completely worth it. We couldn’t have asked for a better day, everything worked out so smoothly!
