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An early morning – we saw a hot air balloon high in the sky as we left Queenstown. We drove through Otago and saw cows, thousands of sheep, and even a few deer farms. We entered Southland, gassed up in Te Anau, and drove through the Southern Alps and through Homer Tunnel to Milford Sound. The drive wasn’t nearly as rough as expected so we arrived a few hours early. We enjoyed the loud sounds of the rainforest, the lovely views of Mitre Peak and examined some big, papery white spiders that had spun their webs along the tour building’s portico. We had lunch at the one eating establishment – the Blue Duck Café. I ate a meat pie and we listened to the Johnny Cash playing over the stereo.

The boat tour of the fjord was gorgeous. At the beginning of our voyage we saw bottlenose dolphins playing at the bow. We learned that the area gets over 20m (65ft) of rain a year, and it rains 200 out of 365 days. It hadn’t rained in a few days, but previous to that had rained three weeks straight. The fjord was huge and impressive, and the scenery was fantastic – rainforest running up the mountains and right down to the water’s edge, exposed parts of the Pacific plate’s fault line and fur seals sunning themselves on big flat rocks.

We stopped at the Milford Underwater Observatory and saw black ferns, schools of tiny fish, starfish and urchins. The water was full of sediment, which the guide said was a recent development; usually the water was crystal clear and they weren’t sure why it was so cloudy. (note: the observatory is where I got my sand flea bites)

We boarded a different boat to go back to the dock and got a good look at Bowen Falls, which provides water and power for the few buildings in the area. On the drive back to Queenstown we stopped and saw a gorgeous waterfall in a gorge called ‘The Chasm’ and took photos at the Mirror Lake.

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I met Mom and Dad at LAX, but before we could board the plane – small hiccup: a security breach at the checkpoint by our gate. We were delayed while police searched for who knows what/who, and our whole flight crew was trapped on the other side of security. Eventually we were allowed aboard the plane, and were assured we’d make up the time in the air. We had a great flight on Qantas – a little schedule so we’d know when food was coming, good food, great entertainment, a surprising amount of sleep.

We landed in Auckland then flew to Queenstown. Had a laugh at our first exposure to the New Zealand accent – at the airport a woman kept coming over the PA asking passengers to go to the check-in hut which sounded exactly like ‘chicken hut’. As we flew over the South Island we had amazing views of the Southern Alps and the Tasman Sea. When we exited the plane onto the tarmac the air smelled wonderful – like cinnamon toast, I swear! A good beginning to the trip. We were surprisingly un-jetlagged so after we checked in at the hotel (Dad did great driving on the other side of the road for the first time!) we took the gondola up to the top of Bob’s Peak and took in the view of Lake Wakatipu, the Remarkables and the paragliders. We walked up the path that wound its way through and over the luge track, and basked in the sun awhile (it was super hot in Queenstown – probably nearly 90 and the excellent weather and blue skies would follow us all around the island) then came back down the mountain and ate dinner at a pub. We got dessert to go – this AMAZING Bailey’s molten chocolate cake – and managed to eat most of it before going to bed.