Day 45, in which we sail through Milford Sound

A tour bus collected us at 9:30am from the holiday park today and took us on a day trip north to Milford, passing the dreaded Divide Shelter where so much of yesterday had been wasted. It took about two and a half hours to cover what should have been a one hour journey, thanks to numerous sight seeing stops and toilet breaks for the old timers on board.

At Milford we boarded a small motor boat which sailed us up and down the Milford Sound, a long, thin salt water lake surrounded by vast mountains and occupied by seals, penguins and dolphins, which is named after Milford Haven in Wales but with which it otherwise has little else in common. The whole trip was spectacular and came with a delicious packed lunch, and after three days of fighting hard through the mountains with our provisions on our backs just to see a few paltry mountains, it was superb to just sit back and have everything done for us. The whole experience was one of the highlights of our entire holiday, and the photos above don't even begin to do it justice.

The coach returned via Te Anau to Queenstown, an incredibly long road journey made bearable by the showing of a DVD of The World's Fastest Indian starring Sir Anthony Hopkins, a biopic about an eccentric old Kiwi called Bert Munro who broke the land speed record in the 1960s armed with little more than a 1921 motorcycle and a few handmade engine parts.

Returning to Queenstown was like going home, and we even checked back into the YHA Lakefront Hostel. For dinner we went to a seafood restaurant called Finz down on the main jetty, where I ordered mussels and was surprised to find that, as with much else in New Zealand, they are bigger and better than the ones we have at home. Here they come in bright green shells and are the same size as oysters.

After two bottles of superb wine, including a truly awesome bottle of Jules Taylor sauvignon blanc, we decided it was perhaps time to do the laundry. Then bed.