Chinese Version / 中文版本
After the long road trip of yesterday, we continued to hit the road again. The first destination of today is Milford Sound, which is actually a fjord. Besides its natural beauty, The Lord of the Rings was filmed there that makes it even more renowned in the world. As my friend is a big fan of this movie trilogy (still have no idea why she is so fond of these boring movies), we simply couldn't miss this valuable chance to go to the world famous Milford Sound.
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| A very long cloud we saw on the way to Milford Sound |
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| Apparently this lengthy cloud started to thin out here |
Because we were not sure whether we could buy the boat ticket there or not, we decided to buy it from the hostel prior our departure. From Te Anau to Milford Sound, it totally takes around 2-3 hours, in case you will make stops on the way. In spite of the scenic views, we only made one stop, we were afraid we would miss the ferry later. After driving through Homer Tunnel (a single lane tunnel and very sloppy), we soon arrived at the port of Milford Sound.
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| The lake we saw on the way to Milford Sound |
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| Heading to Milford Sound |
By the time we arrived at Milford Sound, we still had plenty of time left. Therefore, we could only walk around the port and there's nothing very special. The most regretful thing is that there were different companies in the pier offering ferry tours. We're so regretful to buy it in the hostel in advance, otherwise we wouldn't need to waste so much time in the port.
While it's time for us to get on board, we could pick our seats randomly. Then the ferry started to leave the port and sailed to the middle of the fjord. There was a guide on the ferry, who non-stop made introduction of the pretty sights to us through a microphone. No matter where you sat, you still could hear the information clearly. In this ferry tour, we could see the mountains, the waterfall, baby seals, and that's all I could think of. The ferry even sail from the fjord to the open ocean, but only for few minutes, this was the farthest we went. Afterwards, the ferry made a u-turn and sailed back to the port to end the tour.
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| The port in Milford Sound |
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| Waterfall |
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| Sailing on the ferry |
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| Heading to the ocean |
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| Sadly we had to return to the port, otherwise it's a good place to watch the sunset |
Though some scenes might be spectacular, this ferry tour indeed was less impressive as I had imagined. I couldn't even tell where the scene was filmed in The Lord of the Rings either. It's just an ordinary fjord, with green mountains and water, that's all.
Later we drove back to Te Anau with the disappointment we had in Milford Sound. Nevertheless, one story has to be shared: While we were starting to leave, we saw some people hitchhiking on the way. I pondered and asked my friend, "Should we do them a favor? We are going back anyway. It's really pathetic if they can't leave Milford Sound and be stuck here for however long they don't even know." My friend then said, "I don't agree, while it's their responsibility to check everything prior the trip. We're not obliged to make such offer."
I totally understood her ground, but I got soft-hearted again when I saw the second group of people hitchhiking on the road. "But you know, there's no public transportation here and we're going back, right?" I asked. My friend pondered for a while, and then said, "No, come to think of it, if we're making the offer, we will have to tidy up the mess in the back seats." I was immediately pwned, as I really didn't want to do any clean-up at that moment. Moreover, I should respect my companion's point of view. After all, she was the one to share every expense of the car with me.
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| Heading to the waterfall |
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| Baby seals were resting on the rocks |
When we arrived at Te Anau, we stopped at the supermarket to stock up some food for the rest of today's road trip. And we were attracted by the meat sections, so we decided to cook these meats for tonight's dinner when we got to Queenstown. We had been having such craving for meat since day 1, we seriously needed to cook some meat tonight.
However, things always didn't turn out as what we had planned. After driving on the long, boring and winding highways in the dark, we eventually made it to Queenstown at around 9 at night. All the cooking mood got vanished and we ended up having dinner at an Italian restaurant instead.
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| One last look of Milford Sound |
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| A simple version of camper van in New Zealand with the hand drawing of Bart on the outside |
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