NZ Trip – Day 2

Day 2: Queenstown, NZ

We woke up bight and early for our tour of Milford Sound. We’re technically 18 hours head of NC, although the net time difference is only 6 hours. Either way jet lag has hit both of us pretty hard. The view from our hotel was nice, though, and there were what sounded like a flock of birds outside our window

We boarded the bus across the street from our hotel and began our 2 hour drive to Milford Sound. The bus had a glass roof which was pretty neat

The drive, which takes you south out of the mountains, west through farmland, then back north through Te Anau, was breathtaking the entire time. The road from Te Anau to the sound was a depression-era project and took 25 years to complete, finally opening in 1954. It includes a 3/4 mile long, single lane tunnel blasted through one of the mountains – the metamorphic rock is so hard that it took 100kg of dynamite to advance the tunnel by 25cm (10”). We stopped a few times before the tunnel:

At one of the stops we encountered a few Keas, birds native to NZ and which have no fear of people. Before humans arrived about 700 years ago there were very few natural predators – no snakes or mammals besides a few bats, so they never evolved a fear instinct. Apparently they’re about as smart as dogs and have learned how to open zippers from unsuspecting tourist’s bags!

We stopped again after the tunnel to revel at this view. These fiords were created by glaciers as the last ice age ended, and from views like this it’s not hard to imagine that scenario. Notice the waterfalls off of both sides – these don’t show up very well in pictures but they were very impressive in person. Basically every mountain had several mostly vertical snowmelt waterfalls on them.

We boarded a boat when we arrived and were treated to a picnic lunch ad more amazing views. Milford sound is a UNESCO world heritage site, I think I heard the guide they named it the most naturally beautiful part of the planet. I can’t say I disagree from what I’ve seen – at some places there are 700m (2100 ft) shear cliffs dropping directly into the sound. Pictures don’t really do it justice, I included one with a boat in it for scale. The cliffs extend into the water, causing the sound to reach a maximum depth of around 1000 ft.

We managed to catch a glimpse of some crested penguins and a few seals, although I didn’t get any good pictures of them. There were a few spectacular waterfall as well

About an 30 minutes in to our 2 hour ride back the bus had quite a blowout. Fortunately it was on a straight section of road and we were about a mile from a rest stop where we could wait for help

About an hour later another bus arrived and we were on our way home again, eventually getting to the hotel around 10p. There were worse places to get stuck, though

NZ Trip – Day 1? 2? Which way is up?

Day… let’s call it 1

Durham, NC to Queenstown, NZ

Distance: 8,993 miles

Fun fact: the absolute farthest you can get from your current location is 12,430 miles away (based on earth’s radius). We’re currently at about 73% of that. Not bad.

We woke up at 3:30am on Thursday, 17-Nov-22 for our 6am flight to Charlotte. From there we flew to LA, had a 12 hour layover, flew 10.5 hours to Fiji, another 4 hour layover, 4 hour flight to Auckland (North Island), 4 hour layover, and finally a 2 hour flight to Queenstown on the South Island. At the time of writing it’s 9:30pm local time on Saturday, 19-Nov (2:30 am EST). Total travel time: 47 hours.

To say we’re tired is an understatement, but the trip was worth it. Flying into NZ is like arriving at Jurassic park – mountainous islands just appear out of the middle of the ocean. We’re both exhausted so I’m going to keep this post short. Tomorrow we’ve got a guided tour of Milford Sound so we should have plenty of pictures.