Aug 2006

Milford Sound is a truly spectacular sight and the boat cruise is the only way to experience it. However there is nothing else to do there (at the sound) other than the boar cruise and if you are not going further south than Te Anua it is a long journey (even though it is just a short hop west from Queenstown as the crow flies).

However it is a must as the journey from Te Anua to Milford Sound is one of the most spectacular that we undertook in the whole of NZ. The lakes you pass, the tall mountains on each side capped with snow, the avalanches of snow and rock that have (come) crashing down to try and bury the road all the time, the crazy hole that heads straight down into the mountain that they call a tunnel, etc makes this a truly exciting road trip.

The conditions at Cardrona are very good, lots and lots of soft powder. The road getting up and down is a bit scary, especially in our camper van but so far we have survided two days and still not had to use snow chains.

It was a bit of a shock to the system on the first day as we had forgotten everything, couldn't even do a single turn. Am glad that we booked a lesson for the first morning and by lunch time all was good again as it came back fast with the help of a bit of instructions.

Marie is doing great, much better already than by the end of last time at Whistler.

We have one more day of snow boarding tomorrow and then on Friday we will head even further south to the fiords, which promises to be really good at this time of year. Not sure of our journey from there though as we have already spent a day in Queenstown, and we were originally going to spend a night there on our way back up to Christchurch - will see how it goes.