New Zealand - Queenstown Part 1 (Milford Sound)

Day 30 - Tuesday, February 21 (cont'd)

The first night in Queenstown is generally a big party night because the group tends to go different directions from Queenstown, so it's sort of the last night with the whole group together. We started the night with a "Jager Train," which was impressive:

From New Zealand - Queenstown, Milford Sound & Kaikoura

From New Zealand - Queenstown, Milford Sound & Kaikoura

But still not quite as impressive as the flaming dr. pepper train we had at Touche in Austin after Molly and Anup's rehearsal dinner. I actually had a video on my old phone before I went swimming with it on the 4th of July last year. So I'll just have to borrow this video, but imagine about 3 times as many shots and more awesomeness.

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Sidenote: that whole weekend in Austin for the Mitchell-Shah wedding was awesome. If you've never been to Austin, go.

Later in the night we headed over to the World Bar, where I spent a lot of time while in Queenstown, and we had ourselves some teapots:

From New Zealand - Queenstown, Milford Sound & Kaikoura

Day 31 - Wednesday, February 22

I had pretty much already decided that I wasn't going to do anything on Wednesday. A combination of mediocre weather and quite a hangover made it even easier to do nothing all day but sit around, upload some photos and try to catch up a bit on the blog. I didn't go out that night either because I had to be on a bus at 730 the next morning for a day trip to Milford Sound.

Day 32 - Thursday, February 23

The whole southwest corner of the South Island is a national park known as Fjordland. Among the many fjords there, the one that is generally considered the most beautiful is Milford Sound. Yes it is misnamed, as it is a fjord, not a sound. (Don't know the difference? Google is your friend.)

When I woke up, it was raining pretty hard in Queenstown, but Milford is something like 300km (~185 miles) from Queenstown and on the other side of the southern alps, so many people had pointed out that the weather in Queenstown is often not indicative of the weather in Milford. However, Thursday was not one of those days. And with the rain, comes lots and lots of clouds, which tend to cover up the majestic peaks rising right up out of the water for which Milford Sound is known. One silver lining was that with lots of rain, comes rather active waterfalls, which is another highlight of the Milford Sound area. There was definitely no shortage of waterfalls. Our bus driver did his best to sell it as a unique opportunity to see Milford with it looking very "mystic," among other synonyms. So here are some of my photos of Milford, looking very "mystic" (i.e., dark and cloudy).

From New Zealand - Queenstown, Milford Sound & Kaikoura

From New Zealand - Queenstown, Milford Sound & Kaikoura

From New Zealand - Queenstown, Milford Sound & Kaikoura

From New Zealand - Queenstown, Milford Sound & Kaikoura

From New Zealand - Queenstown, Milford Sound & Kaikoura

From New Zealand - Queenstown, Milford Sound & Kaikoura

A google image search reveals that when it's not so cloudy, Milford Sound looks a bit more like this:

From New Zealand - Queenstown, Milford Sound & Kaikoura

Back in Queenstown it was another fun night out, which once again consisted of a good portion of the evening at World Bar.

Day 33 - Friday, February 24

Another day of just relaxing, taking it easy, and nursing a hangover. Spent some time trying to figure out plans for Australia and getting the blog updated. Went out again. This time, checked out a few more of the bars in town, but ultimately ended up back at good ol' World Bar.