Kiwi Discoveries, Mitre Peak, Milford Sound

Kiwi Discoveries - Mitre Peak website 

Milford Sound is one of the South Island must do’s! Such a beautiful place is an attraction that must be explored and a cruise with Kiwi Discoveries – Mitre Peak is a brilliant opportunity! A coach (bus) – cruise – coach option is $175 for adults and $120 for children with opportunities to fly back to Queenstown (if there are availabilities). Our group chose to do the coach – cruise – coach, meaning that we met the bus outside the YHA hostel in Queenstown at 6:30 ready for our 12-hour trip. Once everyone had been picked up from around Queenstown we were on our way along the edge of the beautiful Remarkables Range.

Our driver, Dean, was quite chatty and seemed to know a lot about the area we were driving through. He told this great story about how Lake Wakatipu was created. I know there are different versions of the story and the locals will tell it much better, but it goes along the lines of how a there was this village and the King had this beautiful daughter. One day the village was astounded to find that the horrible giant had taken their Princess. The King said that anyone who could bring his daughter back to him would have the privilege of marrying the Princess. One man succeeded, but they figured the giant would just come back and take the Princess again. So while the giant was sleeping they put wood over his body and set him on fire. The fire burnt into the land and created a hollow; it also melted the snow on the mountains letting the water stream into a lake. The fire however could not kill the giant’s heart, even today the water level of the lake rises 12cm every five minutes. While science says it’s the fluctuating air pressure, I think it’s a little more than a coincidence! (Please don’t take offence if parts of the story are incorrect).

We rolled into our first break stop at Te Anau and forced our sleeping bodies to go for a wander around the town. The cruise has an option of buying lunch with the company and picking it up just before getting on the boat, but most of us decided to buy lunch at one of the cafes on our break. Throughout the Fiordland National Park we had two stops, to admire the great peaks and the mirror lake. We also went through the Homer Tunnel, just over a kilometer and a half, which takes us through to Milford sound. It was actually quite scary seeing how much rock and mass was going to be on top of our bus. I must say dark tunnels are not really my forte! 

After five hours on the bus we boarded our Mitre Peak cruise at midday. We were lucky that the day was beautiful weather, no clouds in the sky and only a little bit of a breeze. However, we were a bit unlucky that it hadn’t rained in the lead up to our trip and the waterfalls were quite small, definitely disappointed with Mother Nature. But Milford Sound is still an incredibly stunning place! We saw seals lounging around, visible minerals in the rocks and it was fun when the boat bobbed on the ripples from the other boats we occasionally saw.

After about an hour of cruising up through the wide gorge like rocks we finally came out at the sea. Suddenly it’s like there is a moment of clarity, something clicked in my emotions and everything just seemed to make sense in that second. It was tranquility, all the problems of the world seemed to fade with the wind rushing past us, there was nothing to care about, no college assignments due in by 5pm. It was just the wide-open ocean that could take us anywhere we wanted, only five days to Australia and to my family! We did this great loop and turned to go back through the gorge. The cruise back is equally as beautiful and we were able to see a couple of big waterfalls.    

                     

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On the bus trip back to Queenstown we drove right through to Te Anau and most people slept. We had a short break in the town where I found this coffee shop that does an epic chocolate frappe! Back on the bus we watched ‘The World’s Fastest Indian’ – great movie, and made it back into Queenstown by 6:45. I really enjoyed our trip to Milford Sound and recommend it to those who enjoy the small wonders of the environment and things that are a bit more slow paced in comparison to the fast adrenalin activities like bungy jumping       and Canyon Swing.    

Check out this blog from Jucy Cruize, another great way to explore Milford Sound!