Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Milford Sound way

Today we planned to visit Milfourd Sound and take a two hour cruise. In the morning we had a quick breakfast in Casa De Ali with toast and yogurt and some green tea. We were advised to leave early before all the tourist busses were unleashed so by 9 am we were on the road unfortunately it was still overcast and the clouds hid the mountains so when we reached mirror lake there was no mountain to mirror.



But as we rode on the clouds started to part and more vistas were revealed . We stopped two more times at lookout places and viewed wonderful nature and glaciers. There were many tourists and a few were flying drones for some aerial photography.



about 20 km before reaching Milford Sound we reached a stop light with a timer that was counting down from 8 minutes and a tunnel. It seems that the tunnel is one way at a time , while waiting some birds got really close and one was on Ali's bike with them came a sign "Don't Feed the Birds" .


After the tunnel there was a sharp descent and we reached the parking lot only 20 minutes before the boat was scheduled to depart with no idea where to go. First we needed to take off our riding gear and store it in the bikes, then we needed to split up to see where to go and keep in contact with our phones. Ali was done first so he left for the docks and I left for the offices only to discover there is no cell service. Once I saw the map Husain and I started to walk towards the docks and met Ali midway , there was no time only 10 minutes if we didn't make it we would miss out on the cruise. So we quickly walked helmets in hand until we reached the ticket office and off to the cruise , not two minutes after we were on the boat did it depart.



The cruise would takes us all the way to the sea and back, on the way we got to see the mountains and the different shades of granite in the rock from the different metals. We also saw small penguins hiding in the beach , many waterfalls and seals laying on a big rock. The biggest waterfall was Stirling and the boat got right up and close to it.



When we got back we had a small break at the cafe and started to ride back right when the rain started to fall, another light for the tunnel but this time it was green , and the rain stopped. There were so many cars and campers right after each other that we were glad we were on motorcycles overtaking them one by one was easy with light bikes especially on twisty roads.



We reached the hotels with time to spare for laundry and a proper meal at a classy restaurant. Tomorrow we head back north to Wanaka.