Milford Sound

Plane trip to Milford Sound...

What an incredible experience! This will definitely be one that is hard to top! Stephen and Alan did this trip a few years ago, so they opted not to do it again. Athena and I woke up early to head over to the Queenstown airport where a small 6-seater plane awaited us. The pilot drove it right across the grassy field and over to the runway. I started videotaping the take-off and before I knew it, we were airborn. We climbed steadily as we flew over Queenstown and the lake. Soon we were soaring above the jagged, snow-capped peaks filmed in some of the Fellowship of the Rings sequences. We flew right alongside hanging glaciers and a few times I didn't think we were going to clear the highest points of the mountains. We ended up emerging over the Tasman Sea before we began our descent down through Milford Sound. When we landed we boarded a smallish boat in order to take a tour through the Sound. Our ticket included a free coffee and chocolate chip muffin much to my delight! Athena and I stood on the bow of the boat and snapped photos of the many waterfalls and sheer cliffs carved out by the ice. The fjords were spectacular. We even spotted some fur seals sunning themselved on the rocks.

The return plane trip was phenomenal. We flew over the valley that people doing the Milford Trek walk through and we flew alongside the Sunderland Waterfall (the highest in the Southern Hemisphere). We watched the water plunge over the side of the mountain from a huge, mountaintop lake. The opportunity to see the sharp, craggy peaks of the mountains from above was truly an unforgettable experience!