Milford Sound , New Zealand
Milford Sound, New Zealand
Action and Adventure town
If you like action and adventure, the perfect place to visit is the South island of New Zealand. It is an extremely popular tourist destination, during both summer and winter, and offers all types of activities.
The South island is is well known for its mountain range called Kā Tiritiri o te Moana in Māori or the Southern Alps as named by the explorer James Cook. The range is rugged and is part of the Ring of Fire. You can see the sudden change in the topography and scenery as you fly from the North island to the South. The rolling hills and flatter terrain changes to more rugged landscape
The airport is only five miles from the town and is
easily accessible by taxi or local busses. There are plenty of hotels and rental apartments, which can be booked directly or through web services. The month of February would be an ideal time to visit for summer activities, whereas September is good for the Winter season activities. Staying within walking distance of the harbor front allows for easy access to the shops, bars and restraunts. It is also where most of the tours tend to start from. If you are in Queenstown for a few days you must book a road trip to Milford Sound.
Once you Cross the town of Te Anau the terrain starts to get mountainous and the plains change to heavy forest.
The Bost trip is about two hours and include lunch, drinks and a lot of opportunities for taking photos from the top deck. The winds are strong and cold even in summer so be prepared with the warm jackets. We found the ideal spot on the top deck that was right net to the enclosure that house the boat exhaust piping. Its provides warm air and also allows a sheltered space where you can still get some good photographs such as the one below.
Milford Sound
There are many operators who offer tours to Milford Sound as this is one of the most popular sights to see in this area. This trip commences at 7:30 am and you return back to Queenstown by 8PM. Its a long day but well worth it. Milford Sound is about a four hour drive each way. With spectacular stops along the way, the journey to Milford Sound is as good as the cruise of the Sound itself. The bus drivers are knowledgeable about the terrain and give a good explanation of the sights and sounds. for first 2 hours you drive by enormous farms having an abundance of sheep, cows ,horses and even Llamas grazing the fields. The pastures are abundantly green and the vistas are spectacular.
Once you Cross the town of Te Anau the terrain starts to get mountainous and the plains change to heavy forest.
On the way to Milford Sound the tour makes a couple of stops. One of the stops is the location that was used during the filming of "Lord of the Rings" movie. It is a spectacular and huge meadow which is shown in the YouTube video ,attached at the end of the blog. We also stopped by a gorgeous Wild Lavender field and stopped at some locations to film streams fed by the melting snow caps of the nearby mountains.
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Once you have arrived at Milford Sound you are dropped of by the harbor which has numerous jetties where the tour boats are docked. Its all well orchestrated and the tickets are part of the tour package.
The Bost trip is about two hours and include lunch, drinks and a lot of opportunities for taking photos from the top deck. The winds are strong and cold even in summer so be prepared with the warm jackets. We found the ideal spot on the top deck that was right net to the enclosure that house the boat exhaust piping. Its provides warm air and also allows a sheltered space where you can still get some good photographs such as the one below.
I will end by stressing that if you are in the South Island, please make it a point to visit Milford Sound.
Please review the video link below:
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