Queenstown to Milford Sound in the sunshine
Today, we are doing the long drive up from Queenstown to Oamaru, 5 hours but that’s ok because we can make a day of it and stop at plenty of places on the way. Well that was the plan anyway!We woke up to blue skies and sunshine, I’m not sure who had the idea first (I think Paul may have thought it and then Ben suggested it) but we ended up putting off the drive north in favour of another trip to Milford Sound, this time in the sunshine. It was all a bit mad, especially as it turns out that Mollie is not really that keen on small planes but somehow we ended up at Queenstown airport where we jumped on a seven seater plane. The 45 minute flight to Milford Sound is spectacular, flying over and sometimes very close to mountain ranges, glaciers and lakes before circling around the fiord and landing at Milford airfield.
We then took another boat trip out, this time we did see Mitre Peak and I think you’ll see from the photos that it was quite a different place in the sunshine, far fewer waterfalls and it felt less of a wilderness than when we came two days ago.
On the flight back, we took off from the airfield headed straight for Mitre Peak, it was a bumpy ride to start with and Mollie may have kept her eyes shut for some of the way! We took a slightly different route back completing the circuit and then flying alongside the Remarkables and across the Queenstown end of Lake Wakatipu before touching down at Queenstown airport.
Photos of our flight and Milford Sound on a sunny day
After an amazing 4 hours, it was time to get back in the car and start the journey that we had originally intended earlier in the day. Much of the drive was through central Otago, very flat compared to the mountains we had been flying in and around only a couple of hours ago. After what seemed like ages, we were pleased to see the coast again and had a short stop at the Moeraki Boulders (see previous blog entry for a description of these) before wearily arriving into Oamaru a few hours later than planned.
return to Milford in the rain
link back to Our Big Trip South
posted by Sharon, Ben, Louise and Daniel @ 11:09 pm
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