Milford Sound

If one picture is worth a thousand words,  then this post is going to go on forever!    As I mentioned earlier, the primary reason we jumped ship was because our overnight excursion to Queenstown and Milford Sound got cancelled.   Today reaffirms that we made a good decision.   The weather in Queenstown changes by the hour.  As soon as we arrived in Queenstown on Thursday we booked a scenic flight to Milford Sound for 10 a.m. on Friday morning.  They only make these flights if weather conditions are absolutely perfect.  At 9 a.m. that morning, we received a call informing us that they would not be flyng that day.  We rebooked for 2 p.m. the following day at their advise, because being familiar with their weather patterns, the company thought that was the best chance of going.  At 1 p.m. yesterday it was confirmed that we were going. 

They sent a taxi to our hotel to pick us up and took us to the Queenstown airport where we boarded the 6 passenger Cessna plane.

There was just our pilot, Nick, a young lady from the tourist information center, and us!   Milford Sound is located on the other side of the mountains, on the western coast of the south island.  The trip by car or bus is 5 hours one way.  Although we were told the scenery was beautiful, that's really a long drive.  Richard recommended we get there in 35 minutes by plane.  Great idea!

As we made our way through the mountainous terrain, Nick turned the microphone on the headsets to "crew".  He and Richard enjoyed too many laughs.  

He did comment once that to the passengers in the back, it looks like we're really close to these mountains!

 

Nick flew us to the mouth of Milford Sound, where it opens to the Tasman Sea.   It was truly breathtaking!

 

He then banked left, descended, and gracefully landed on a tiny runway surrounded by huge mountains.

 

The 1-1/2 hour boat excursion we took once we landed was very good, however, it paled in comparison to the flight over these majestic mountains!

On our return flight to Queenstown, I was so overwhelmed, that I realized tears were flowing down my face.  I've heard that travel is the only thing you can spend money on, that makes you richer!  This day confirmed that.