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| on way to milford sound |
Eye lashes
protested from separating , they did not want to be traumatized by the light of
the dawn this morning, so did the muscles of the body which wanted to lay down
undisturbed for some more time. The weather , the calm, the peace, the serenity
of the place sent such positive energy through the spine that one would feel
like being in the same state of trance for as long as possible. But every
fantasy has its villain and so did this
one. The alarm. It was set at 0545 hrs and very religiously it rang breaking
our unfinished symphony. We had to get up early because we were expected to be
in the foyer of our hotel by 0700 hrs to get into the bus. We performed our
morning rituals and had a heavy breakfast and were all set to go when the bus
picked us up and we were the first ones to get into the bus .
we managed to get
good seats by default as we were the only people in the bus then. The seating
would be important in this journey because this was supposed to be one scenic
rendezvous with exhilarating natural beauty. The first 2 seats in the left half
of the bus had the privilege of us sitting. The bus then made its way to
different hotels and picked all others who were traveling to the same
destination. The co passengers were from
diverse backgrounds.. from india, france, Japanese, Korean and a few from UK. Japanese
and Koreans were given headphones which could be connected to the port on every
seat. And translator would speak in those languages whereas the majority of us who understand English
the driver cum guide would speak. The journey would last 6 hours with one
comfort break which in simple words means toilet stop. The journey was as beautiful as it was
promised with landscapes so beautiful and breathtaking with cameras clicking
continuously to capture as much as one could. We followed the southern arm of
lake wakatipu to lumsden and onward to lake Te Anau. The scenery changed
dramatically from tussock covered grasslands to glacier hewn valleys as we entered the Eglington valley
and travelled through the breathtaking man made Homer Tunnel to reach Milford
Sound.
Once here we
completed security check and booked our lunch on board and waited for our
cruise liner . the view of milford sound is better seen than read. Rudyard Kipling had previously called it the eighth Wonder of the World. Milford Sound is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created in a valley carved by
glacial activity with water in valley. The weather was just fine luckily
for us with the sun just out not too warm not too cold. The cruise started its journey and we got into
the top open deck of the liner. It was so windy that we almost struggled to
hang on in there but definitely clicked some nice pics . we then went into the
covered portion of the cruise and had our buffet lunch. An awesome array of
buffet options laid in front of us
ranging from prawns to mussels to chicken to beef to ham. We ate all that we
could and wanted and went to the front deck of the liner. Luck was on our side
again as we saw lots of dolphins and seals
. we spent almost 2 hours and on the way back we were taken close to the
cole falls . once the liner docked at the miniport we felt we still needed to
spend more time on board but it was not possible as we had to get into the bus.
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| milford sound |
We did just that and the bus took us back to queenstown another 6 hour journey
. but the time was well spent with
driver entertaining us firstly with a dvd on making of homer tunnel
which was interesting and then a movie on life of a whalechaser which was a
good watch.we reached our hotel at 730 pm in the evening . we freshened up and
went to the city centre to a restaurant called india:once upon a time. Some good
Indian food after a long journey was all that was needed to recharge our
senses. We crawled back to our hotel and after some washing clothes session
retired to the bed satisfied with the day that just passed by……
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