When Should a Sound be a Fjord?

Off to the Skyline this morning, that is a gondola up to the mountain that overlooks Queenstown and, at the top, gives a fantastic view of the town and Lake Wakatipu. Up there, we try our hand at the Luge, where you ride down a pretty steep course in a cart. We had 5 rides each and by the end, even Diane thought she could match Mr Hamilton for speed! There is a nice restaurant and we enjoyed the extensive buffet that was on offer (with a bottle of wine, of course!). That evening, there were fireworks at the bay as part of the winter festival and we watched these from the hotel restaurant.

After the excitement of the fireworks, it's a gentle day after that, with a walk partially around the lake, through the gardens. It is very peaceful, other than seeing a number of people of all ages throwing discs about, then where they land, throwing them again, apparantly in a random fashion. It was not until we had finished our walk and was about to leave the gardens that we saw a sign that explained the rules of disc golf! Then we saw the metal buckets in the trees, that represented the golf 'pins'. It was a pity that it was now getting dark, otherwise we would have had a go. Our early dinner was at Botswana Butchery and it was excellent; the menu was different to any we had seen elsewhere and the food quality was top class.

The following day, we are picked up to go to Milford Sound and travel to the airport as we are flying there and back. The flight over Lake Wakatipu and then across the mountain range to Milford Sound is incredible. After landing at the tiny runway strip next to the Sound, we get on our boat for the journey on the water. Within minutes, we have bottlenose dolphins playing within yards of the boat. By the time we all scramble for our cameras they have swam out of sight of any decent photo opportunity, but it was a wonderful sight and the captain said it was quite rare for them to be so near. The trip is good value and particularly when the boat steers to within a few feet of a majestic waterfall, where the spray completely soaks us! Our flight back was no less wonderful than the first and we are quite disappointed to land. We have a late lunch at The Grill, that has a great view of the lake (and a great place to people watch) before spending a final few hours at the festival before it packs up. We listen to the band at the bay for a little while, before having a drink on the floating boat in the harbour. Then we catch the bus back, although this time the driver forgets to stop at our hotel. He lets us off at the following stop which is in the next village and suggests we wait over the road for the bus back into town, which should not be too long. We do that and, after about 10 minutes a bus comes along. As the door opens, we see it's the same bus driver that missed our earlier stop! No surprise that he remembers to drop us off at our hotel this time!

Regarding this blog's heading, Milford Sound should be Milford Fjord, as it was carved out by a glacier and not by a river. And the Milford name was given by John Gorno in 1823, after his Welsh birthplace, Milford Haven.