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Tuesday 22nd May 2007
Journal brought to you by Sophie, who LOVES Queenstown
Today we went to Milford Sound on a day trip. Milford SOund is in the Fiordlands and is not actually classified as a sound but actually a fiord, the difference being a sound is a large sea or ocean inlet and a fiord is a long and narrow estuary with high steeply sloped walled sides, made when a valley previously occupied by a glacier is flooded by the sea. There you go, I hope you all feel fully educated. It was a very long day today. We had to be on the bus at something like 6:50 and then had a 5 hour drive to the fiordland. Unfortunately I have temporarily mislaid my camera. I have absolutely no clue what I have done with it, which is very annoying as I like to take a ridiculous amount of landscape photos whereas Tami takes pictures of people. It may be on the bus. I am useless. Anyway Dan didn't get up in time and missed the bus. Our driver wouldn't go round to his hostel, which was pretty much on the way so that we could go and wake him up so Jamie, Tami, Mike and I had to go without him.
When we go there we jumped straight off the bus and onto the boat so that we could go on a two hour cruise around Milford SOund. It was absolutely stunning. The steep and massively tall cliff faces with waterfalls tumbling down them were breathtaking. The captain took the boat right up to the cliffs so that we could see the trees clinging onto the bare rock and also the natural decoration on the stone. At one point he took us right under one of the waterfalls and the crew collected the fresh water in glasses so that we could drink it. I had a bit of an embarrassing moment at one point when I was precariously balancing on a rail at the front of the boat trying to keep my feet dry when we went over a rather large wave and I slipped over the boat and nearly went straight over the front of the boat! Luckily some quick thinking crew member managed to grap my leg at the last minute and haul me back in. Everyone else seemed to find my near death experience hilarious. I stayed inside after that.
The cruise took us right out into the Tasman Sea, which actually was quite rough and then dropped us off on the way back at this underwater observatory. It was so cool in there! We went down 9m below the surface and watched all kinds of fish and other sea creatures swimming around us. We also saw this stuff called black coral, which wasn't actually black because of all these sea creatures and plankton that cling onto it. It was quite fascinating. When we were back on dry land we had to jump straight back on the bus and had a four hour bus ride back to Queenstown. It was a lot of travelling today and although it was definitely worth going the fact that we spent more time travellling there and back than actually there was a bit stressful.
We went out when we got back to the Altitude and Globe bars as some other members of the Kiwi bus were leaving us and we had to celebrate their last night with us! It was good fun as usual. We were absolutely exhausted by 3am due to our early start so called it a night. Milford Sound was beautiful - another gorgeous place that New Zealand has to offer. Tuesday 22nd May 2007
Journal brought to you by Sophie, who LOVES Queenstown
Today we went to Milford Sound on a day trip. Milford SOund is in the Fiordlands and is not actually classified as a sound but actually a fiord, the difference being a sound is a large sea or ocean inlet and a fiord is a long and narrow estuary with high steeply sloped walled sides, made when a valley previously occupied by a glacier is flooded by the sea. There you go, I hope you all feel fully educated. It was a very long day today. We had to be on the bus at something like 6:50 and then had a 5 hour drive to the fiordland. Unfortunately I have temporarily mislaid my camera. I have absolutely no clue what I have done with it, which is very annoying as I like to take a ridiculous amount of landscape photos whereas Tami takes pictures of people. It may be on the bus. I am useless. Anyway Dan didn't get up in time and missed the bus. Our driver wouldn't go round to his hostel, which was pretty much on the way so that we could go and wake him up so Jamie, Tami, Mike and I had to go without him.
When we go there we jumped straight off the bus and onto the boat so that we could go on a two hour cruise around Milford SOund. It was absolutely stunning. The steep and massively tall cliff faces with waterfalls tumbling down them were breathtaking. The captain took the boat right up to the cliffs so that we could see the trees clinging onto the bare rock and also the natural decoration on the stone. At one point he took us right under one of the waterfalls and the crew collected the fresh water in glasses so that we could drink it. I had a bit of an embarrassing moment at one point when I was precariously balancing on a rail at the front of the boat trying to keep my feet dry when we went over a rather large wave and I slipped over the boat and nearly went straight over the front of the boat! Luckily some quick thinking crew member managed to grap my leg at the last minute and haul me back in. Everyone else seemed to find my near death experience hilarious. I stayed inside after that.
The cruise took us right out into the Tasman Sea, which actually was quite rough and then dropped us off on the way back at this underwater observatory. It was so cool in there! We went down 9m below the surface and watched all kinds of fish and other sea creatures swimming around us. We also saw this stuff called black coral, which wasn't actually black because of all these sea creatures and plankton that cling onto it. It was quite fascinating. When we were back on dry land we had to jump straight back on the bus and had a four hour bus ride back to Queenstown. It was a lot of travelling today and although it was definitely worth going the fact that we spent more time travellling there and back than actually there was a bit stressful.
We went out when we got back to the Altitude and Globe bars as some other members of the Kiwi bus were leaving us and we had to celebrate their last night with us! It was good fun as usual. We were absolutely exhausted by 3am due to our early start so called it a night. Milford Sound was beautiful - another gorgeous place that New Zealand has to offer.
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