We leave Cascade creek campsite at 7:15am
after having the simple mueslis kiwi milk breakfast. There already have a
campervan leaving the campsite too and I just follow behind them. The only left
distance is around 50km but the road is quite dark and curvy. The Maps.Me route
said will take around 35min. When we reach the Milford Sound Visitor Terminal
Parking, it is already 8:10am. After take out things, we walked for a few hours
as the visitor terminal doesn’t allow the visitor to park so near.
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| Breakfast inside the car |
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| To the terminal |
The cruise that we booked are Mitre Peak
Cruise at 8:55pm. It is a smaller boat compare to other companies. We boarded
the cruise at 8:40am and we sit the seat on the top deck. Before departing, we
have some coffee first before enjoy the scenery.
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| Prepare to get on cruise |
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| Mitre peak cruise is much smaller than other cruise |
After cruise departing, the first viewpoint is the Bowen Fall which is quite spectacular. Then the cruise sail
towards the sea for an hour. We saw a few nice sceneries include the Stirling Falls. When we were at where the sea meets the Milford Sound, the wave is so big
that this small boat is kept yawing side by side. Then the cruise slowly sailed back to the visitor terminal for an hour. We not only manage to saw the fur
seals, we also lucky to see the group of dolphin swimming. Then at the Stirling Falls, the cruise get near to the falls and we get wet. The falls water is so
cold that we quickly to hide under the roof to getting completely wet. Then we went down to the bottom deck to have some hot drink.
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| Start of the cruise with Bowen Fall behind |
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| Stirling Falls |
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| Stirling Fall at Far away, the fall water is out from a valley |
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| Small Water fall everywhere |
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| Nice scenery everywhere |
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| Sleeping fur seals |
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| Hector Dolphins! |
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| At the front of the cruise |
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| Bowen Fall when the cruise almost end |
At 11am, the cruise sail back to the
terminal. Then we didn’t leave the place. We continued to walk around the terminal
to take more photos. We also walked to the Milford foreshore walk to get a nice
reflection scenery.
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| Nice reflection |
We leave milford sound at 12pm. We stopped
at several places like the Chasm and a bridge to take photos. Then we stop at a
straight road near the monkey creek to have simple lunch with the scenery of
three glaciers is quite amazing. At the monkey creek, we didn’t see any Kea,
then we continue our journey.
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| Waiting for the one way tunnel |
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| Nice river stream view from a bridge |
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| The Chasm |
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| Three glacier mountain top near the monkey creek |
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| View from the Monkey Creek |
At the Te Anau, we saw and took photos with
the alpacas. They are so cute. Then we headed to Lumsden to add petrol as there
is cheaper 20 cent than in Queenstown. The route drive to Queenstown is very
scenery and the mountain beside the Lake Wakatipu. We stop at the Devil
Staircase to photos. The lookout at Lake Wakatipu is very nice too but we
rushed to the Queenstown.
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| This is too cute! |
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| The Devil Staircase |
When we reached Queenstown at 5:50pm, we
headed to the Queenstown Hill Entrance. This hike take around two hours. Hence,
we rushed to hike before the sky getting dark. We reached the first viewpoint
with just 45 minutes but the view not that nice. Then we took another 20
minutes to hike to the top view which have better scenery but strong wind.
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| At the top of Queenstown Hill |
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| Nice View |
We climb down and reach the entrance at
8pm, then we headed to town to have Domino Pizza with mussels that we bought
from supermarket as dinner.
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| Dinner |
After that, we drove 13km to a campsite
call 12 miles to stay. This campsite cost $13 per person. This campsite is
quite far from the town and there is no light pollution which is good for
stargazing. However, the weather is so cloudy today then I shall have a good
night sleep after long drive and long climb.
