2024 New Zealand: December 31st - Queenstown to Milford Sound

 

We got up, packed everything into the car after breakfast, and then drove to buy cough medicine and fever medicine for Boen. The pharmacist asked if it was a dry or wet cough and Boen demonstrated that for her, and she immediate said, “Dry.” She gave us the appropriate cough medicine, and some fever medication as well. However, we discovered we’d forgotten the CPAP battery and had to go back to the hotel to get it, where it was lying on Bowen’s bed.

After that, the drive to Te Anau was no big deal. From Te Anau, we drove towards Milford sound and the scenery began changing dramatically, first with the Eglinton Valley views that were spectacular, a long flat plain backgrounded by mountains that invited you to spin around like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. At the far end of that valley at Lake Gunn, there was a turnout where we found large groups of lupines backed with pine trees also with a grand views of the mountains behind them.

At the next lake over, Lake Fergus, there was an opening where you could see the river just flow down from the mountains onto a rocky lakeshore. That was beautiful as well. It made me wish that we had an RV and could just roam the area camping wherever we liked and enjoy the scenery at leisure. Of course, that would have made the drive much harder and slower.

At the Pop’s View Lookout, we stopped for a view of Lake Marian. We would have to pick either Lake Marian or the Routeburn track hike to do the next day. The road soon routed onto to a traffic light that controlled traffic into the single lane tunnel. This light actually had a timer that told you how long you had to wait, and there were two lanes for the wait, enabling me to avoid being stuck behind an RV.

The tunnel wasn’t very exciting, but the road after the tunnel was nothing short of amazing, a video game drive if there ever was one, with steep descents and grand views that made me wish someone else was driving so I could enjoy it. Even so, I didn’t ever feel like I’d rather be cycling the road as the thought of badly driven RVs coming up on my tail on these narrow roads with high speed limits filled me with fear.

We stopped at the Chasm Bridge viewing area. To our disappointment, the bridge itself was closed. Having run out of buffer time, we drove to the Milford Sound Cafe, where I dropped off everyone else, before driving back out to the free parking lot. The short walk from the park to the Cafe was only 15 minutes, and I arrived to find that the actual ferry terminal was another 10 minutes away. We ate a quick lunch, and then hiked over.

The Milford Sound Cruise terminal serves multiple cruise lines, and ours was the smallest, with a passenger limit of 18 people. Despite that, it was fully booked except for New Year’s Eve, which is why I had ended up driving back and forth from Te Anau to Queenstown and back rather than going straight from the Kepler track to Milford Sound, which would have been the most logical thing to do. We checked in, got our boarding badges, and then waited to get onto the boat, the Fiordland Jewel.

Once aboard, we were given the customary safety briefing, and then boat immediately left the dock, driving past Lady Bowen falls. Of course we had to get photos of Bowen with the falls in the background. The day was beautiful and the skipper celebrated New Year’s Eve by giving everyone onboard a free drink. I picked a low-alcohol beer that was surprisingly tasty, while Xiaoqin picked the Apple Cider, not realizing that it had alcohol in it. The kids grabbed fruit juices.

The nice thing about being on the overnight cruise is that the skipper doesn’t have to be in a hurry, so we took a leisurely cruise, exploring many nooks and crannies, including waterfalls that only are seen when it’s been raining recently, a seal rock, and watching a team of climbers attempting to climb one of the cliffs before heading out into the Tasman Sea.

On the way back, one of the highlights as that the skipper would drive the boat straight into Sterling Falls bow in, giving us a chance to shower in the falls. Boen bowed out of it, but the rest of us did it, and it was much less dramatic than advertised (for a cruise like this would they really let you do anything too uncomfortable?), but I got a photo of Bowen with a rainbow halo, which looked great.

We then returned to Deepwater Basin, where the boat anchored for the night and we got in line to Kayak. Kayaking on Milford Sound was one of those activities where when I inquired about it from various outfits, they required a minimum of 10 or 14 years old and wouldn’t make an exception for Boen. The Fiordland Jewel was the only exception and another reason we picked the overnight Cruise rather than trying to stay at the only lodge in the area, which was likely booked up anyway.

The Kayaking was fun and Bowen even got to see a seal up close and personal. After the 45 minutes of Kayaking, we got back onto the Jewel and were coached as to how to jump off the boat into Milford Sound. The water was cold, but we had to have the experience. We then showered and sat down to a 3 course dinner followed by a short show about the Fiordland Jewel’s winter expeditions to other sounds in New Zealand, as well as footage from the underwater drone that’s part of the research program.

To round out the night, we also got first dibs at the hot tub on top of the vessel. The adult passengers probably preferred the hot tub only after dark so they could do star gazing, so they were happy that the noisy kids got out of the way.

Returning to our cabin, I discovered that the outlets were too far for my CPAP machine to reach, so I was very happy that I brought along a CPAP battery and ran my CPAP machine that way.

We’d packed a ton of activities into one day, but it was clear that the medicines we’d gotten for Boen worked. He stopped coughing, slept well, and didn’t need medicine for the rest of the trip. I, unfortunately had caught his cold, and would intermittently be coughing until we got home. We slept well, not waking up until the next morning.