Up we got (some more willingly than others!) at 5:30am this morning to catch our 6:40am coach tour to Milford Sound (Piopiotahi) – a place Rudyard Kipling referred to as the eighth wonder of the world!

We had originally planned to drive ourselves to Te Anau and stay there for easier access to Milford Sound, but after we made our NZ trip slightly shorter to fit in a diversion to Fiji, we chose to take a day tour instead and stay in Queenstown longer. Martin has done all the driving this trip, so this gave him a nice break too!

Once the coach had picked up all the passengers, we headed south with a beautiful pink-orange sunrise view of Queenstown and the mountains all around us. We stopped at several viewpoints/lookouts along the way, with brilliant information from our friendly bus driver Roland.

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Next stop was Mirror Lake…

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… and then Monkey Creek, where we saw wild Kea for the first time.

The highway we were on is the only way to get to Milford by road, and takes you through Homer Tunnel – a 1.2km long solid rock tunnel through the mountain – the building of which started in 1935 and was completed in 1953.

It was another hour on the road until we reached our boat, but then we were off! A buffet lunch and a hot cuppa later and we were ready to face the rather blustery, damp conditions outside…

During the ice age, a giant glacier made its way to the sea, carving out a spectacular sheer-sided valley. When the glacier melted, the sea flooded the valley and Milford Sound was formed.

Milford Sound is actually incorrectly named – it should be Milford Fjord (A sound is formed by a river, but a fjord is formed by a glacier).

What an incredible place and how lucky are we to have witnessed it! Just a casual 4.5 hour coach journey back to Queenstown and we’ll be ready for snoozeville.