Today (Friday) we took a bus trip to Milford Sound. It took about 5 hours to get there, but the drive there was absolutely beautiful and we were able to stop a lot to take some pictures.
This was right at the entrance of the Milford Sound National Park. This deep valley was carved by a glacier.
Another stop was at Mirror Lake, today was a very windy day, and even on days like this, the lake is very calm.
Another view from mirror lake
The creek/river that runs through the park is incredibly clean, cleaner than tap water. The bus driver pulled over in one place and encouraged us to fill up our water bottles. He claimed that the water makes you ageless (he was apparently 198 years old because he drinks the water every day).
My mom trying the water, she said it tasted like nothing... Which I guess is what you want in a bottle of water.
Another view from the water spot. The weather was rainy, but it really gave toe mountains a cool/creepy look!
Just another cool picture, you can see the road we took in this one.
The amount of waterfalls we saw were crazy!! They were everywhere!!
Another place we stopped at was called The Chasm. The bus driver referred to it as a giant flushing toilet. The water came in really fast in a slight water fall, and the water has slowly formed the rock into lots of different bowls.
Here's the waterfall going down.
Here you can see all the little bowls
The power of water amazes me!
In front of The Chasm
After many stops, we eventually made it to the lake where we would take our cruise through the fiords. A quick geology lesson: a fiord is a landscape carved by a glacier, leaving the floor in a U-shape wherever the glacier went. A sound is a landscape carved by a river, leaving the floor in a V-shape formation. Milford sound is actually wrongfully named, this area is a fiord, but at the time it was named the word "fiord" didn't exist yet.
On the cruise!
It was a little windy...
Just to give you some perspective, the waterfall in this picture is 80 meters tall... These pictures just can't truly grasp how big and beautiful this area is!
The boat driver took us right underneath the waterfall.
The cruise brought us out to the beginning of the Tasman sea and then back.
A little chilly today....
Seal Rock, rightfully named!
The cruise lasted about two hours and then we heard back to Queenstown. By the time we were going home, the mountains were clear of the clouds and revealed a whole new landscape to drive home through!
Mom posted my next to a Moa, a now extinct bird, native to NZ.
It was a long day of traveling, but seeing all the beautiful sights was well worth it! Another fun day behind us!
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