What a day! Pick up at 5.45h this morning for a two hour drive to Milford Sound. Learned something interesting. If the valley was formed by a glacier it is called fjord and has a V-shape. If it was formed by a river washing it out it is a sound and rather U-shaped. So Doubtful and Milford actually should be called fjord!
Anyways, great place no matter how they were carved into the landscape. Milford Sound is one of the wettest places on earth getting around 12m of annual rainfall. When we arrived there were still clouds hanging in the mountains offering an amazing show of light land shade.

 

Sandflies were insane today! The rain from yesterday evening apparently made them insane. Probably 50 of them on you at once – no chance to fight them off ?

But then we went out on the water. A small boat took us out around 2/3 of the sound and we climbed in our kayaks.

First stop was a small seal colony. They were still in there morningly yoga class – not being disturbed at all by us paddling through there training camp.

The sky cleared up and we had one of the few sunny days in Milford. One of the seals caught a big fish and gave us a nice show how to eat something like this properly. You bite into the fish and shake your head until the rest of the fish flies off and you can eat your piece. And that’s how you do it until it is completely gone ?

We paddled through the sound for about 5h having an easy day.

 

Ben (my kayak-mate) and I did some real surfing in the kayak on the waves produced by the ships. Great fun because you do get quiet fast and you don’t have to paddle anymore to progress ?

 

Final dinner in town before I will hitchhike back to the trail tomorrow morning to make my way to Queenstown. Something between 3-5 days depending on the weather.

PS: coolest machine I have ever seen to sell condoms in a restaurant. It was the Redcliff – supposingly one of the top 10 restaurants in NZ. Can tell why now. Had one of the best lambs ever!

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