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| Cessna Caravan at Milford Sound Airport |
Today is another cruise through a sound in Fjordland national park, but instead of driving 2 hours out and all the rest, we are flying.
I got up and wrote a bit of blog before we left to get breakfast. I got eggs on toast and hot chocolate. My chocolate came with the classic heart shape that often comes on coffee. Not that it's a big deal, but it's the first time I've ever had one, so it was cool to me. The breakfast was ok, but my over easy eggs were overcooked and the yolk was solid. I love the runny yolk, but I'll live.....somehow.
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| Fancy Hot Chocolate |
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My view while writing the blog. Not a bad view for a LaQuinta |
I finished the blog then headed we headed out the front of the hotel to wait for our ride to the airport. There was a lady also standing out front and when the ride came, she also got in to head to Milford Sound. In fact, when we got all checked in and ready to fly, she was in the co-pilot's seat with Mike and I in the 2 seats right behind her. And when I took videos out the front and sides, she's often in them. Her name is Christina and she was from Germany. So now you'll know.
Our pilot was Ben. My first thought was to ask him when he was going to graduate from high school. He was probably late 20s to early 30s but looked sooooo young. He had a whispy little mustache and beard, but who am I to point out flaws in other people's facial hair. Once my wife was asked what my favorite thing to pretend was, and she answered "That he can grow a mustache".
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Our pilot Ben |
So, with all those doubts running through my head, we boarded the plane. It was a Cessna Caravan that held 14 people. We had a total of 11 people on board including the pilot and a 3 month old baby. Ben gave us a pretty standard safety briefing to keep our seat belts buckled at all time, showed where the floatation devices were and the fire extinguisher. He also said we were free to use our cell phones and didn't need airplane mode.
Ben started the plane and taxied us over to the main runway. A jet was just landing. I figured we would taxi onto the runway and take off. But no, we had to wait for the jet to roll out at the end of the runway, then turn around and taxi all the way back down past us to the terminal. It turns out this airport doesn't have jet sized taxi ways. I have a pilot license and I've had to "taxi back" on main runways before, but only on small town airports. Ben was a bit sheepish as he admitted how little infrastructure this airport has.
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Waiting for a jet to taxi back and clear the runway - strange |
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Departing Queenstown main runway |
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Queenstown from the air |
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| POSH outskirts of Queenstown |
Once the jet passed us, we just turned onto the runway and Ben gunned it. We were off the ground pretty quick. As you can image, the views were amazing. We turned nearly due west toward the mountains and within minutes we had mountain peaks all around us.
I thought it was so cool I called my wife on video call. She answered and I switched on the normal camera to let her see the view outside. "That's cool" she said, then started telling me about her day. I guess I was a little let down that she wasn’t impressed and didn’t want to watch the scenery, but that's my wife. "It don't take me long to see a rock" is one of her sayings. We chatted a bit then we hung up.
Next I called my daughter Klair. She instantly turned off everything and sat down to watch, now THAT'S MORE LIKE IT!! We couldn't talk because my phone was on speaker rather than on my ear buds. I hung up and called her back. BTW, I was calling on Facebook messenger. Now we could talk so I gave her some views out different windows. The signal started to get weaker as we got farther into the hills, so I hung up to call another daughter.
Koren answered but said she couldn't see much. It was too pixelated. I held the camera very steady to let it fill in details then she said "HOLY HECK" that is so cool. We were just passing a mountain peak. It felt like it was 100 feet out the window. The signal kept weakening as we talked and eventually it died without saying goodbye, but I was happy.
After I lost cell service I decided to shoot some video. I hit the video button and started filming. I would film 5 to 10 seconds at a time, then pause and point somewhere else. I kept do that right up until we landed. It got me a little over 5 minutes of footage. I was counting on Mike to take plenty of other pictures to add to the blog.
Flying through mountains in a Cessna Caravan
Ben kept us at an altitude below the peaks so we felt like we were flying right through the heart of the mountains, because we were. He didn't play chicken with the peaks or anything scary, but he did weave around a bit and passed pretty close to a few cliff faces. There were also a few up and down drafts which we could really see and feel. Watching a cliff face jump up 50 feet is rather disconcerting but it was a so much fun and made the airplane ride the major attraction of the day, even more than the pretty views.
Eventually we broke out of the mountains onto the coast. Ben began our descent out through the Sound to the ocean, then flew a gentle 180 back in toward the docks and the airport. Ben made a steep descent toward final and landed with a very positive thump on the runway. No bouncing and no harsh sideway pull due to crosswinds. He taxied us behind all the other planes then shut the engine off. There was no ground crew, no tie downs, and no chocks to block the wheels. Just shut it off, set the parking brake and hop out.
We unloaded from the plane and took a full bus to the terminal. Ben split us up into different groups, gave us our tickets and sent us on our way. Mike and I wound up on a massive ship. We were nearly the last to board. As soon as we got on board they sent us downstairs to the "International Buffet" and said it was closing in 5 minutes. We grabbed plates and stacked them full with everything we might want. I got some lamb roast, beef ribs, mussels, a small salad, broccoli, and bread. We also got a little cup of ice cream, kind of like what you used to get at school lunch. By the time we climbed back up the stairs they were already clearing the food away, no going back.
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| Our Ship to cruise Milford Sound |
The food wasn't bad, but by the time we finished eating we were already 15 minutes into our cruise. We headed upstairs but it was packed with people, so we headed to the bow again. There were people up front but it wasn't packed, so we stayed there almost the whole rest of the cruise.
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| Beginning the cruise |
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| Milford sound is busy. About 20 boats in sights at any time |
The first cool feature was a very tall waterfall in a little bay. The boat pulled in and sat for a few minutes while people tried to pose for pictures. I didn't catch the narration about the bay or waterfall, but the ship started to slowly rotate in that bay until we'd done a full 360 turn, then it pulled out and we were back on our way.
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Pivoting the boat under Fairy Falls |
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Out near the ocean looking back into the sound. |
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| Supposed to be seals on the rocks but not today |
Because we were in the very bow of the boat, we were standing by the ship's brass bell. I don't know what triggered it, but suddenly a stream of people started coming up and asking us to either move so they could take a picture by the bell, or to take a picture of them by the bell. We obliged them either way.
One man was from India, and after I took his picture, he introduced himself and said he was from Milford in South Wales and wanted a picture in Milford Sound to send to his friend. I told him I'd been to Milford and he was astounded. I also told him I could pronounce the famously long name of a town in Wales. He started asking question after questions for about 10 minutes all while we were still trying to take pictures. He was very friendly but eventually we said our goodbyes and he moved on.
We had barely pulled past the end of the sound when the boat made a wide turn and we headed back into the sound and toward the dock. We were only 45 minutes into the trip and it felt like we'd seen almost nothing.
The turn put us in the shade which gave a bit more contrast. We were still getting the stream of bell pictures but it slacked a lot. Thinking back, it felt a bit like Hobbiton where tour groups had to pause while the group ahead of them looked at something interesting. But here were large tour boats taking turns pulling up to a feature while waiting for the boat ahead to clear the next feature. It was just the scale that was different.
We came to another large waterfall and the narrator said it was fed by glacial water. He also said that being sprayed by the falls would make you feel 10 years younger. He also said it didn't work if you were from Australia or Auckland. The captain boat slowly nudged the ship in toward the canyon wall, closer and closer until there was a pretty constant mist of water cascading over us in the bow. I didn't get drenched but I was sure moist, and it was COLD. We had a constant stream of people trying to get to the front for a few minutes but the ship didn't stay in there long. Once we backed out almost all of the people left again.
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| Stirling Falls - rejuvenates you if you get splashed |
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| Me getting my rejuvenating spritz from Stirling Falls |
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| Looking into Milford Sound from the Ocean |
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| The mountain around Milford Sound |
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| Me staring around Milford Sound and the famous bell |
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Looking out toward the ocean |
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| Mitre Peak |
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| Lady Bowen Falls - fed by the power station |
We all met up when Ben got there and headed for the buses. A short ride back to the airport then we loaded up for Ben to fly us back to Queenstown.
The ride back was not as adventurous as the ride out. We climbed about 1000 ft above the the peaks and went straight as an arrow back to Queenstown. Ben still narrated bits and pieces, but the adventurous flying was over. He again landed us with great precision on a small runway that was perpendicular to the large runway. He taxied us at high speed right to the terminal and hit the brakes.
When we got out we found a taxi waiting for us and Christina. He drove us back to our hotel. During the ride, Christina introduced herself and told us where she was from. She's touring New Zealand alone for the next 3 weeks, then hoping she can get home since her flights take her through the middle east, where our president is conducting a hostile business takeover of Iran.
We said goodbye and headed back to the room to offload our stuff and take a break. It was only 3:00 and there was plenty of daylight left. We decided to do a bit of shopping in Queenstown, so we drove to our favorite parking spot, then walked into town. After only 20 minutes, we found the item we were after. We weren't ready for dinner yet, so we just got a snack. We saw another crepe shop, so I got a crepe with strawberries and Nutella. Mike got a Paris special. We sat out in the middle of the lane and people watched while we ate.
When we finished our Crepes, we drove 15 km out to Kawarau Bridge. It is the first commercial bungee jumping site in the world. The bridge is 141 feet tall and still does bungee jumping today, except that it doesn't. It was closed when we got there. Either end of the season or it's going through refurbishment because there was scaffolding on the nearby buildings.
We walked around and took a few pictures but there wasn't much to see.
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Kawarau Bridge - Birthplace of Bunge Jumping |
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View from the bridge |
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| Zipline and Swing at the bridge |
We went back to the hotel for a while, and I wrote more of this blog. We talked about what to have for dinner and I said it was probably time to resort to pizza. I started trying to explain why it would be a good time but just wound up saying "Pizza Good" and that was enough for Mike, so we headed to the best rated pizza in the area. I got a medium pepperoni and mushroom, Mike got a Hawaiian. Both were good but I left half of mine because I just couldn't eat it all.
Our hotel is called LaQuinta as the Remarkables. The Remarkables is the name of the mountain range beside us, and they are as their name states. Mike found that there is a ski resort on the mountain, and for a small fee you can drive up to it, so we headed that way after the pizza. It was a very twisty road. We stopped a few times as we climbed to take some pictures. At one point Mike said, "Wow the city looks cool from up here" and I replied "Yeah, just like it did on the plane ride this morning". He told me I could get out of the car and walk home.
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The Remarkables from their base |
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Views back towards Queenstown |
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More views from the Remarkables |
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| Looking down at the road we came up and the airport |
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From our hotel looking at The Remarkables |
Near the top we saw a red van with a young couple parked in a clearing. They were sitting on chairs enjoying the sunset. There were bikes hung on the back and surf boards on the roof. I assumed they were wild camping and planning to stay the night. It was a beautiful place to do so.
We didn't make it all the way up as the sun had set and it was rapidly getting dark. We headed back down and made it to the hotel in time to get a parking space instead of being forced to pay for city parking.
Now I'm about to finish this blog and try to add pictures to day 4 and publish it. Not sure I'll get that much done.
My steps today were 7,000 or 3.3 miles
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