Milford Sound (January 12)

This was the only day we had a real tour planned on our whole trip where we’d be with other people in a confined space — taking a bus from Te Anau down to Milford Sound and back. We had read that it was difficult driving to do alone, but at this point in the trip, I think we could have managed it just fine. I wanted to go with this particular tour group because it stopped along the way to take a hike and I thought guides would know the best places to stop.

I had called them the day before to let them know that Jim was 7+ days out of his Covid onset (NZ guideline) but that Rachel wasn’t, but she didn’t have any symptoms.  I told them we’d stay masked the whole time and offered to drive behind the van.  To my surprise, they called me back after talking to their driver and said we could just come along as planned.  They were grateful for our honesty and thought it would be fine if we stayed masked. 

After a breakfast of yogurt and fruit in our rooms, our guide Andrew picked us up in the lobby at 8:00 am.  He doubled as a tour guide and the rural mailman, contracted out to deliver mail four times a week, so we made 3 stops along the way to deliver mail!  We learned a ton along the way, and I took notes but I don’t know where those are right now!  It was a beautiful drive for sure.  We learned about the problem they have with stoats, weasel-like creatures that were introduced to control rabbits in the 19th century but are really harming the native wildlife, who all evolved in a land with no natural mammalian predators.  We made several stops on the way down to the Sound and enjoyed gorgeous scenary on a crystal clear day.

Then we went on a 2-hour trip on a boat through the fjords of Milford Sound, which of course brought on memories of our similar trip in Norway with Elizabeth and Juliana.  This one was better, but not as great as I thought it was going to be. We got on the boat close to last but were the first to go to the front of the boat. We sat down on a bench and stayed put, masked. Others figured out we had the best location so it got crowded at times but we had great views of the mountains, waterfalls, and seals. (The seals are all juvenile males who challenged the dominant male in their colonies, lost, and were exiled here.)

On the drive back to Te Anou, we made a lot more stops, including a walk through the forest to the river.  Andrew gave the people on the van a choice of walking with a guide or not, and we were the only ones to go with him. Afterall, we had chosen this company to learn about native flora and fauna. We learned about how the native honeybees don’t really like native plants, how one tree has unpalatable leaves until it gets tall enough for the flightless birds to leave it alone, and how NZ beech trees are unrelated to the beech trees in the northern hemisphere though the leaves look similar (hence the name).  He gave us lots to look at but he also took a long time with us. By the time we got back to the bus, everyone was already sitting here, and could have been waiting for quite a while! 

Julia went for a short run and we walked up to a bao place where Rachel could sit outside for dinner. We came back to watch an episode in separate rooms. My ice cream habit is becoming a problem, but I got a little single serving of vanilla TipTop at the grocery store and ate it with an entire pint of blackberries. 

I sent Jim our check in information for our airbnb the next day and he noticed that rather than making a week-long reservation in Queenstown, I had made it for Christchurch (not where we were headed).  I had already received nice texts from our host saying the place was ready for our arrival, and I felt terrible canceling on her.  She has a very generous cancellation policy and I was refunded most of my money, though I would have preferred to give her more.  The upside of my mistake was that instead of being committed for a week in Queenstown as we had planned, I was able to get us a place just for the weekend, giving us more flexibility for how to spend the next week.