Oh Milford, Oh Milford

Been a few days so we shall tell all about our journey to the wilderness that is Milford Sound.
The cruise was absolutely spectacular and something that we would highly recommend to anyone. We departed the port around half four and ventured out onto the water where we were greeted by some of the most amazing scenery i have ever seen. The mountains rose out of the water itself and peaked in the clouds far above our heads. As there had been substantial rain fall in the previous couple of days, the waterfalls that we had been told about were all too visible and made the scenery even more wonderful. We steamed out to the Tasman sea and dropped anchor in Anita's bay where we jumped into Kayaks and splashed around for an hour while a guide pointed out some of the interesting areas in the bay. After numerous sandfly bites we jumped back on the Wanderer and were treated to a roast pork dinner and some fine wine!

The evening was spent playing Monopoly and after a a cosy nights sleep we were awoken to the smell of fried bacon! As we munched our breakfast the Captain announced that he had seen some dolphins playing by the front of the boat and i have never seen people move so fast in my life. All of a sudden, all 33 people were crammed in the front of the ship gawping at a pod of 6 dolphins which including an ickle baby one! queue more äwws and wows!Unfortuatley our camera takes 3 seconds to take a picture so we didn't manage to snap the happy moment.

A couple of minutes after seeing the dolphins we saw another set of creatures, in total 11 yellow eyed pengiuns were coming out amongst the rocks and into the sea. The yellow eyed penguins are the second rarest penguins in the world with only 2000 pairs alive in the wild, so we were really lucky to see so many of them!
The trip ended with the usual practice of any tourist operation, the veiwing of the photos you had taken as you were boarding the boat. We did not purchase the set at $35 as it had been a couple of days since we had hda a shower so we were some what greasy in the pictures, not something you parents would have been proud to have mounted on your walls!

It's big Al's birthday today so we are going to indulge in some hot springs and a game of a-maze-n-golf.

xxx