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Hey! The three of us got our early morning Kiwi bus for our Milford sound daytrip (after grabbing brekkie at Mc Cafe (part of the mcdonalds here, really nice cafes- we should have them in england!). Our bus driver was Cracker. He was hilarious, drove pretty much the oposite to our last driver Q- slow! But that was good, cus even thought the driver there was like 4 hours and a half, the scenery was absolutely stunning and we stopped for photos plenty of times. Te Anui lake (2nd biggest lake in NZ), the mirror lakes (perfect pics, almost surreal theyre too perfect!), and just generally stunning mountains with sheer sides covered in waterfalls and the Beech fern trees, which just grow straight off the mossy rocks! The rivers were a bright blue, all perfect really!
We stopped before the Homer tunnel, a long tunnel through a mountain, and we clambered up onto the roof of the tunnel entrance for some cool photos, then leapt down and legged it bk to the bus in time for him to go through when the light changed to green (only stays green for 60 secs). We saw the cool windy road through the mountains used in the Mazda 'Zoom zoom zoom' car adverts on TV lol. Crackers took a cool photo of me and sarah jumping in midair, no idea how he did it- weve tried and failed before. He also put a sneaky pic of himself on our cameras pulling a wierd face! We had Poppy on our trip, girl whos been on most of our bus trip round NZ.
Oh, and we also had some girls on our bus that reminded us of those essex girls that we had once on our OZ experience bus....a good example is when one of them said 'isnt wales a part of england?'. She was serious. This girl also asked stupid questions all day like 'are we there yet 'and what time is it?' when theres a giant clock above her head. She fell asleep at one point, sat right at the front with the best views and when cracker was talking to us all, and he actually squirted her with a water bottle! Classic. He said if she wanted to just sleep then she could move to the back so someone else could sit at the front! She was drenched.
Crackers mentioned on the way that you could get plane flights from milford back to queenstown, through the stunning scenery of mountains and it went through milford sound and along the sea and beach for a bit. And it got back hours before the bus did. Us three looked at each other and knew we all wanted to do it!
When we got to Milford sound it was pretty stunning, we asked cracker to book our plane for us for the way back, and we all got on our boat trip round the fjordland of milford sound. The weather was perfect all day- sunny and warm. And yet this is supposed to be the wettest place in all of NZ- 7m of rain a year! The rain washes alot of leaf litter and organic matter into the lakes, making a dark freshwater layer onto of the seawater underneath from the tasman sea that the lakes run out into. This means its very dark green, with the kindof marine life normally seen in deep oceans, making it unique :-)
We saw dolphins and seals from our boat, and waterfalls ended in the lake- you can get wet on the boat! Sarah and claire did!
We went to the underwater observatory station too, where we went deep into the lake and saw some of the cool fish life, and stuff like the black coral, polyps, starfish and tubeworms.
We had a massive hot lunch buffet on the boat too, and when the boat ride finished we left the kiwi group to go back by plane! And OMG it was amazing- it was a cool, small plane, only 6 people onit and the pilot- me and claire sat behind the pilot, sarah behind us (me and claire had the propellors of the plane near our windows- wow theyre loud!). We had the best ever views from our windows and all of us got fab photos, the pilot was a good guide. We saw so many stunning mountain tops, and it as just so clear, the weather was perfect. We got bk to queenstown nice and early, plenty of time to explore the shopping here, claire brought some clothes, and then we all chilled out at our hostel-we had planned to go clubbing, but guess what...the one time we wanted to go out...its Good friday, easter hols, and all the clubs and bars, everywhere really, shut at midnight out of respect. Good thing really, but we didnt get to go out! Claire said its another excuse to come back again!! I already have glacial hiking to come back for!!
Anyhow, we feel like weve had an amazing day, our last day with claire, and tomorrow morning she gets the kiwi bus from our hostel to christchurch :-( Its been a fab time, I reckon I would come to NZ for a holiday like she did. So going to come back!!
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