Milford Fjord and Queenstown Exploration

Hello again everyone! Sorry we haven't posted for a while, New Zealand has been distracting us too much! We've had beautiful blue skies, barely any cloud and although it's pretty darn nippy (we're lucky when it gets to 4 degrees) it's been wonderful! So, we'll just get on with letting you know all that we've been up to.

FRIDAY 6th July

Today we were generally quite lazy, which was kind of forced upon us. There weren't any other things that we could see nearby in Franz Josef town, but unfortunately to get to Fox Glacier, or Lake Matheson we would have had a very difficult journey on public transport, which would have taken ages and would have been expensive. So we walked to the Tatare Tunnels in the late morning. It was a really pleasant walk in amongst the woodland, with great views of a glacial meltwater lake. When we got to the tunnel, I didn't go that far in, as I would have had to have got soaking wet feet - but Steve being more adventurous ended up delving in further. However, he ended up coming across some bugs, which were a cross between cockroaches and spiders and so he suddenly came dashing out of the cave towards me, whilst letting out a few squeals of fright! Once we'd wandered back to the town, we had to pop to the shop to get some food for lunch and dinner and we then spent the rest of the afternoon at the hostel not doing a lot other than watching a spot of TV, playing with the resident cat and playing Scrabble. In the evening we had dinner and then went to our room to read before bed!

SATURDAY 7th July

Today we were making our way to Wanaka. We went out to the bus and found the driver, who seemed to be in a rather bad mood and told us to wait as he would be pulling the bus up to the hotel for us to then board. He ended up moving it literally 2 feet to the other side of the road and then proceeded to not even check our tickets! Anyway, we were then on our way to Wanaka, but we had a few stops on the way - the best one being a stop at Lake Matheson. We went on a walk around the whole lake, which took about an hour and a half. We stopped quite a few times to take photos of the mirror-effect lake and the mountains behind. I was experimenting with Steve's black and white camera and I'm pretty sure that my photos were better! Especially as I got a very artistic photo of a tree with the Sun behind it, it was great. After we'd finished walking around the lake, we ended up having to wait for ages for people to finish having their breakfast at the cafe. For once we didn't have ridiculously long stops at supermarkets etc, but only had a couple of quick loo breaks on the way!
We still didn't arrive that early at Wanaka, as it was a pretty long journey, through some pretty amazing scenery. Once we arrived, Steve and I went for a walk by the lake - it was really nice and we stopped to get a great photo of the Sun setting over the mountains. We didn't have time to do a lot else and so ended up spending what was left of the evening at the hostel having dinner and relaxing.

SUNDAY 8th July

We left Wanaka for Queenstown today. We ended up making a couple of stops on the way though. First of all we stopped at Puzzling World - which was great fun! There was a huge outdoor maze to find your way around to the four corner towers, which we managed to do (although a lot of kids seemed to find their way around more quickly - we found out this was because they kept going under the fences)! Inside the centre was 4 different zones - there was one full of holographic images, one full of faces that follow you as you walk around (they were actually concave, rather than convex, which at first look they appeared to be), one room was about the illusion of making people look like giants or dwarfs (the trick was used in Lord of the Rings) and the final room was the tilted room, where your understanding of horizontal went out of the window! After stopping there for a while we were back on the bus and heading towards the first commercial bungy jump site. We got to have a tour around the centre finding out about the history of bungy and also were able to do a jump if we wanted or sign up for other jumps in Queenstown. Steve and I just watched a few people jump and then spent about an hour being extremely bored, as all anyone was doing was sitting around and eating! Eventually we were able to get back onto the bus and we finally arrived in Queenstown in the early afternoon. We arranged our own accommodation, as we couldn't bear the thought of staying in dorm rooms with the people on the KiwiExperience bus! Our driver kindly dropped us off at our hostel and we ended up with a fantastic room - we have huge windows that look out onto the Remarkables and it's just completely stunning! After getting settled in, we went for a wander around the town to get our bearings and to also get some food for dinner. We then spent the evening at the hostel and sat in the sitting room to watch a movie.

MONDAY 9th July

Today we went back into the town and our first stop was at Underwater World, which turned out to be a waste of 10 dollars! We went down into the viewing area and basically there wasn't anything to see in the water, so we spent about 10 minutes there and then ended up leaving! Afterwards we went for a walk around the Queenstown Gardens and sat and ate our lunch whilst looking over the lake. At 14.00 we went on a cruise across the lake to a working farm, where we saw sheep, deer, sheep herding (using working dogs), sheep shearing, spinning and weaving. We also got to have free tea, coffee and treats during the tour as well! It was a really nice visit and at the end we were collected by the steam ship TSS Earnslaw to take us back to Queenstown. After this we generally had a wander around and grabbed stuff for dinner before heading back to the hostel again!

TUESDAY 10th July

It was a very early start for us today - we were up at 05.30, so that we could be in town by 06.50 to be collected for our trip to Milford Sound! We had about 8 or 9 hours on the bus, as although Milford Sound is only about 100 kilometres, at the most from Queenstown, the only road that leads you there is rather convoluted and so over trebles the distance you have to drive! Crazy stuff, but the driver was cool and put in stops for us to take photos and also go for short walks on the way. Once we arrived we boarded the boat which would take us around the fjord and were on our way. It was a little disappointing in some way - as there hasn't been any rain for some time, the waterfalls had either completely dried up, or were just tiny trickles. Despite this, it was still impressive to see the height of the mountains looming straight up from out of the water! There were some fantastic geological and geographical features - beautiful folds in the rocks, strips of mineral deposits, hanging valleys and so much more as well, it was all very exciting! So we had fantastic views whilst enjoying free tea and coffee. Part way around the fjord we were dropped off at the Milford Sound underwater viewing station. We went down about 10 metres and got to view the extraordinary habitat that's been created due to the fjord - a deep sea environment has been created just beneath the surface due to the lack of waves and movement and the introduction of dark coloured water, which doesn't have a high particle content. After a while we were picked up by another boat which took us back. We then had to hop back onto the bus for the convoluted journey back to Queenstown. We didn't get back until about 20.00, so we grabbed some dinner and then headed back to the hostel.

WEDNESDAY 11th July

Today we were pretty lazy and ended up not getting up for ages as we were both just so tired! Once we were up, we headed into town and went to get tickets to see the new Harry Potter movie, but they were sold out and so we bought some for Thursday instead. We then headed up to the Skyline Gondola to go up to the top of the hill. We also got luge tickets whilst we were there! Once we were up on the hill, we went and had a little watch of the people doing bungy jumps. Crazily enough, we both ended up considering doing one, but thankfully sense got the better of me and the monetary confinements got the better of Steve, plus there are lots of things we would rather do before spending all our money on bungy jumps! We then headed over to the luge and had a few turns at whizzing around the 800 metre track. It was really good fun and it was just a shame that the track wasn't longer, so you could enjoy it even more! We had lunch at the top of the hill too in order to admire the fantastic views of not only Queenstown, but also the mountain ranges beyond. There wasn't a lot else to do though, without spending a lot of extra money, so before long we were heading back down on the gondola. Once down we had a wander around the town, buying some bits for dinner and then we ended up going back to the hostel pretty early on and not doing a lot else!

THURSDAY 12 July

Today we haven't done a huge amount again! First of all we went to St. Peter's church and then we wanted to go to William's Cottage, but we couldn't find it anywhere and so we went to the ice-skating rink instead and spent ages there! I was pretty wobbly to start off with, only being able to get around by either clinging to the side and stopping every few feet, or hanging onto Steve! Eventually I managed to get all the way around by myself without stopping, which was quite exciting! Steve was doing brilliantly though (he has an unfair advantage, as he does a lot of blading too) and he was whizzing around at warp speed and being able to turn around whilst skating and also skating backwards! He kept laughing at my wobbles and squeals as I kept almost falling over! I did actually fall down a few times, which was pretty painful I can tell you and I've ended up with a swollen hand and feeling a tad tender! It was great fun, but soon our feet could take no more of the torture being inflicted by our boots and so we went and had our lunch looking over onto the lake, as we sat in the park. Soon enough it was time for us to get to the cinema and see Harry Potter! It was very exciting and I was eagerly awaiting the time for us to go into the cinema and I was the first person to get seated! Yes, I am very sad and I'm not afraid to admit it and I'm still so excited about the last book that will be out in 8 days (yes, I will be buying a copy)! After the movie, time was getting on, so we went and bought some stuff for dinner and then headed back up to the hostel to eat and come and update the blog and that's about it for today!

There's not much else to tell you for now. We've been a little disappointed with Queenstown, it's certainly a place where there's tonnes to do, as long as you have an endless supply of money! But, it's been very nice being away from the KiwiExperience bus again! We've planned the rest of our time on the bus with more breaks, so that we won't (hopefully), get so fed up with the whole thing and will also be able to see more of New Zealand, rather than just New Zealand's supermarkets!
We can't believe we now only have 5 weeks until we're home, it's absolutely crazy that we have such little time left of our travels!
By the way, we also wanted to say thank you for your congratulations on our engagement. We've certainly been walking around like Cheshire cats, just constantly grinning since Steve proposed! I'm sure we'll have worn the ring out by the time we get home, as we both keep looking at it!
Anyway, we hope you're all well and we hope you are enjoying the blog, don't forget to keep posting, it's really nice to hear from you and really makes us smile when we get new messages! We'll be in touch again soon, missing you all loads!