Queenstown and Milford Sound

Queenstown... what to say about Queenstown! I had heard that it was a party city, and MAN they were not kidding! I avoided it for the most part but saw the potential for crazy within the first night! Everything in New Zealand tends to close early (or at least that has been my experience so far). Shops will say "Hours: 3pm - late" with late usually meaning like 8 or 10pm hahah. After arriving at 7:30pm by bus I had dinner, and came back to the hostel around 9. That's when I got a call from my new friend (A Chilean I met in Fox Glacier) that they were headed out if I wanted to join them. I was tired and declined, but got another whiff of the Queenstown party when one of the people from my shared room rolled in at 5am carrying the familiar smell of bar.

I chose a hostel outside of town (just 1km) so I was able to avoid a lot of the crazy at night, and had a pretty relaxed first 3 days. It was a 4 person room and made friends to go hiking with even met 3 different people from Washington! Small world!




On Tuesday I went to Milford Sound on a coach-cruse tour with Denisse (girl from Chile) and Marcus (a Swedish guy from the hostel). I had waffled on weather to go (cause its like a 5 hour drive!) but I am SO glad I did.

Riding on the bus was great because I got to enjoy the views without having to focus on driving, and the bus driver maintained a pretty low-key but funny commentary along the way. He had so much interesting information about the geology and history of the area, it made the trip that much more fun! (Milford and Doubtful Sounds aren't actually sounds at all! They are fiords! hu...) We made about 6 scenic stops along the way before finally arriving at the Milford Sound terminal for our 90min cruise.

Mirror Lakes, Fiordland National Park

Cruising the Milford Sound

It is hard to express how impressive the scenery was, and equally hard to do it justice in a photograph, but I hope they give you an idea of what it was like. 

Today is my last day in Queenstown. Many people have said you haven't really done Queenstown until you jump off something... SO I am going to give it a go! But that will have to wait for the next blog entry! Stay tuned! haha.