Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Hi all,
The drive to Milford Sound was beautiful which seems to be the case for the whole of New Zealand to be fair. Lovely countryside, huge and I mean huge crystal clear lakes, massive mountains ranges, eagles in the skies, sheep in the fields etc etc. It is just common place.
Milford Sound was wet with a 'light drizzle' in the air at all time which explains the enormous amount of rain that falls there each year. We arrived late afternoon and ended up having a couple of beers in the pub before searching in the dark are a suitable place to park the van and sleep for free.
Thankfully we didn't get caught and in the morning planned a 5-6 hour walk in the National Park that is Milford Sound. Unfortunately without a machete and full water proofs this wasn't going to be possible so we opted to go on lots of smaller walks of 40 minutes to an hour instead. It had been a thoroughly enjoyable day and decided that we would drive back that day/evening as we weren't going to be completing a long walk the next day.
We ended up camping in an amazing spot in some woods right next to Lake Wakatipu. We cooked tea on the pebbled beach and then made a camp fire at night. We had made it back nearly all the way to Queenstown which was good as we were aware of a Professional Rugby Union League match that was being played in Queenstown that day, but would we be able to get tickets....??
Oh yes and better than that we got them cheap.....! We parked up and made our way to the open air ground and queued up to the ticket office to see if we could get tickets for the game. Just before we got to the office a gentleman walked up to us and said, 'do you want 4 match tickets for 60 dollars'. We said no but we will buy two off you. He agreed and we saved 10 bucks each - result.
As soon as we walked into the ground we could sense the carnival atmosphere. All the kids were dressed up with face paint on, come to think about it, so were the adults. The beer tent was rammed packed, the loud speaker was going, it was going to be a real event. We picked our spot on the grass bank and the soaked up the atmosphere and the sun. It wasn't long before the game was about to start and the pyrotechnics went off and the players ran out, Sky TV cameras were everywhere, helicopters in the sky, the Highlander (human mascot looking like William Wallace out of Braveheart) ran out and the crowd started to sing the Highlanders song. The game was good but unfortunately the home side lost in a tight game 38 - 34 to the Chiefs.
It had been an excellent day and I really wanted to see a professional rugby game while I was in New Zealand. I do prefer Rugby League over Rugby Union but objective completed and it was a night trying to get a shower and sitting in the launderette - exciting stuff...!
Bye for now
Miffy x x x
- comments