Haven't updated in a few days becasue I've been pretty busy. On friday I went to Milford Sound. This is a really, really long day trip. It takes about 4.5 hours to drive to Milford. On the way I found out that it's actually a Fiord, rather than a Sound. Something to do with the way it was formed from the glaciers. It looks like a river estuary surrounded by massive mountains with a lot of waterfalls.
The drive there was almost as stunning as the ferry ride around the sound. We had to travel up over mountains then down into deep valleys. There was only one road and it was just trees and rocks and mountains everywhere else. It was very wet and raining most of the time so sometimes the views were not especially fantastic, but apparently wet weather makes the trip better because it makes the waterfalls bigger. They were pretty impressive. We stopped for a photo op just before a massive tunnel and the waterfalls were huge. They weren't huge gushing waterfalls, but were several rivers of water pouring down towering cliffs. There was even a mini glacier at the bottom. The tunnel that we had to drive through was kind of weird. It was 1.2km long and the signals at either end only changed once every 15 minutes. The tunnel was literally a big hole in the rock that was barely tall enough for the coach. The valley on the other side looked like something from a movie set. It was all shrouded in fog and cloud with really dense jungle everywhere. There were more waterfalls pouring off the mountains and I kind of expected to see some dinosaurs wandering round.
The trip on the ferry was lovely. They provided a buffet and we travelled up and down the sound in about 2 hours. There were more, bigger, waterfalls, seals and seriously huge mountains on either side. When we got out a bit closer to the open ocean the ferry was swaying around quite a lot and I demonstrated my inability as a seaman once again by having no balance and nearly falling over a lot. On the way back to the ferry port we stopped at an underwater observatory. This was not exactly life shatteringly brilliant. You went down several flights of stairs and could look out into the depths of the Sound. There were some fish and some corals. It was pretty.
The journey back to Queenstown was long. It was made longer by the fact that about an hour in something in the engine 'blew' and we had to pull over and the driver told us to get our stuff together because we may have had to get off the bus very quickly. This was slightly more worrying than normal as he had told us a story earlier about a bus which had started smoking and then just as the driver had got everyone off it burst into flames and rolled down a hill... Thankfully this didn't happen and he managed to patch it up with ducktape and then get it fixed in the next town. We arrived back in Queenstown about 9pm. That night was a quiet one, we just sat around chatting in the room and had an early night.
I had a lie in yesterday! Didn't get up until 10.30. I then went for museli and a hot chocolate in my favourite chocolate/coffee shop. I also had time for a quick walk round a really lovely little market in the square by the lake before heading to hostel for my pick up for my wine tour.
The wine tour was really good. We got taken to 4 wineries. The first one was the Gibbston Valley winery. We tried 3 wines here and also had lunch and a couple of free glasses of wine. I was going to save money and not have lunch but I'm so glad I did because the selection platter thing I had was amazing. Fresh tomato soup, fresh bread, local cheese, fresh houmous and grapes. Amazing. There was also a little cheese factory next door as well that we went into to try some cheese. It was really, really good. The second winery was the Waitiri Creek winery. The tasting took place in their little restaurant in a small church that they had resuced from being demolished and transported to the valley. Kind of random, but quite pretty. We tried 5 wines here. The third winery was the Peregrine winery. This was in a very bizarre shaped building that is very hard to describe. It was a very new age art style with a sticking up sloping roof. It looked like it should be an art gallery. We tried another 5 wines here. The final winery was the Amisfield winery. There was a really posh restaurant there that I would have loved to go to. You have to make reservations sereval days in advance but the food wasn't actually that expensive. We had our final 4 wine here. I could still tell the difference. Just. Over the day we tried 4 main types of wine. The Pinot Noir, which is the main wine in the region and I wasn't a big fan of, the Pinot Gris, which was pretty good, some Roses which are made from the Pinot Noir grape and are also pretty good and some dry Rieslings, which were my favourite, especially the last one from the Amisfield winery. I wasn't sobre when I got back to hostel, but not completely smashed.
Everyone ate dinner in the hostel bar which was nice as it was the last night together for several of us. After that we got ready for a night out. It was a UV party in the bar downstairs. Some of the girls had some paints left from the full moon party so there was a lot of decorating going on. It was an ok night, not amazing, for several reasons. Firstly, New Zealand has stupid laws over easter where most bars aren't allowed to be open in Easter Sunday so they close at 12am. For the hostel this meant that people staying could drink at the bar but people who weren't had to leave. So at 11.30pm they kicked us all out and an then let us back in at 12. It was very annoying. Also, the bar decided to show the Man U v. Chelsea game on all of the tv's so every was just sitting round watching that. So, an alright night, but not one of the best. I guess it's probably a good thing as I had to get up at 7.30 this morning to get my bus.
The bus ride from Queenstown to Christchurch takes 8 hours. It was a long day travelling. We got here just after 4pm and checked into my hostel. It's strange not being with a massive group of friends. We had been together for nearly 3 weeks. It's hard to get the measure of Christchurch as a city because it's Easter Sunday and everything is shut. I'm assuming that everything will be tomorrow as well because it's Easter Monday so I've booked onto a Lord of the Rings tour :)
Time to go and find some dinner
xx
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