Real Journey Milford Sound cruise
Picture this, looking up at the sky, you see white fluffy cotton clouds so close within hands reach. The sky is pure blue, with no air pollution, inhaling the fresh air, surrounded by mountains untouched by humans. Our next destination on the itinerary was Milford Sounds in Queenstown, New Zealand. We booked the Milford Sound coach scenic, fly tour with Real Journeys costing a whopping $683 each and an additional $39 for a buffet lunch, but you only live once and what chances are there for me going back to NZ anytime soon.
The Real Journeys experience
Spending the next 9 hours on long coaches, cruises, the weather was bad for us to fly and the flight segment was cancelled. A one-way journey around Milford Sounds from Queenstown is 6 hours long, but don’t worry the coach has glass ceilings and big windows to soak up the scenery. There are many pit stops for photo ops along the way and the 6 hours pass by very quickly.
Pit stops
Real Journeys picked us outside our Blue Peaks lodge accommodation at 7 am sharp. The first stop was Moutain Creighton, Ben Lomond Track, the Head of Lake Wakatipu in Glenorchy, glaciers in the mountain valleys. These are the spots where you can frolic in the golden yellow fields, big white fluffy clouds and blue mountains as backdrop.
The Cruise
Eventually, we ended up at the port ready to board Milford Sovereign, by then it was lunchtime, and it was time to tuck into the international buffet food. A lot of it was Asian inspired, har gao, Korean fried chicken, lamb chops were delicious. Commentary is provided in different languages, we passed massive waterfalls, seals on rocks, and took in the serene surroundings.
The difference between a sound and fjord is that a sound is a valley filled with water. Fjord, is an underwater valley and has steeped mountains. As the cruise finished and our flight segment was cancelled it was back on the coach to Queenstown.