Travelling with the Kellys: Day Eight - 29 December 2010 - Cruising Milford/Thompson/Doubtful/Breaksea/Dusky Sounds.

Weather mostly cloudy with a chance of rain, slight breeze 16°C

Sunrise 6.44am however Pete got up at 5.30 and went onto the balcony, which I slept through!! The alarm went off at 6, and I actually woke up, and we were very close to Milford Sounds entry, but we did a full about, so it gave us time to have our showers.

We arranged for Room Service Breakfast for 4, and a bottle of Asti, which we had delivered the night before. Julie and Dave were joining us on the balcony.

All I can say is Wow Wow Wow!!! The entrance was misty, but once we made our way in to the Sounds we were spell bound by the beauty of the area. We had the Silver Shadow with us, but they went on ahead as they were tendering passengers into Milford who were doing the overland trip to Dunedin or Christchurch. At the heads we took Ross Kerr on board from the Department of Conservation, who did a commentary most of the day and we went in and out of the five sounds and past important landmarks. He spoke extremely well and the commentary was sprinkled with historic information, certainly not boring!

The Silver Shadow heading in before the Diamond Princess

Only on a couple of occasions did we have to retreat to the cabin as the mist lowered and turned to light drizzle and the only time is was cold was when we were transiting the Tasman Sea between Sounds. The sea was like a mill pond in the Sounds and it was truly spectacular. Pete and Julie seemed to take photos continuously, as around each bend there was something else to see. Milford Airport was very busy and at one stage we counted no less then 6 planes doing the circuit, plus a few vessels cruising or fishing.

We had one little interlude, when Pete and Dave left to go to a Classic Car Lovers meeting in the Explorers Lounge. They had a dozen or so men turn up to chat and exchange information. It was nice the guys to have some ‘man time’. Julie returned to her cabin for a nana nap as she had had a very disturbed night.

Meanwhile I decided to continue with this log, but during one rather large swell as we were between Sounds the Netbook flew off my lap onto the floor! Too my dismay the Netbook screen was BLANK. So I sat in the cabin for the next hour feeling quite bad, as Pete had just downloaded more photos and my immediate reaction was I had damaged the screen. When Pete returned he was very good about it. After taking more photos Pete had a thought, as the Netbook would not close down, he should perhaps remove the battery. Having done so, he put the battery back in and what do you know, the Netbook reopened, recovered my document (thank goodness!!!) and we were away again. I had of course been saving data as I went, but just to be sure I saved as a duplicate.

The day cruising the Sounds was a once in a lifetime chance, and considering they had 1metre of rain in the previous few days, we were blessed to have a clear wonderful day with a short patch of drizzle.

PHOTOS AT THE END

We did hear people complain about the weather and we decided that you just can’t please some people. After all we were a long way south with a prevailing south westerly weather pattern, so what can you expect. We even heard people who thought they were mislead that it was summer ‘Down Under’, but of course it is really early summer. Oh well, we were more than grateful.

The wine was opened at 5pm, and we enjoyed the final trip down the southern part of Fiordland coast as be headed for Dunedin. We decided we would have dinner in the Santa Fe Dining Room. All the waiters and waitresses have been excellent, and tonight was no exception, except of the snappy supervisor who seemed to make life difficult for the boys for some reason, so we did our best to show OUR appreciation of their hard work. Some of the guys are real characters with very quick wits and always ready for a joke or silly behaviour to break the ‘strict’ professional behaviour. During the Pub Lunch in the Savoy one of they guys said “look there is a seal” When we asked where? His response was “there - the window sill”. It is nice to have chats with them, and they are often eager to hear about NZ and our lives, when they are not too busy.

At 8.15pm there was another show of interest in Princess Theatre - Ports of Call, singing and dancing from the entertainment crew. It was excellent, however Julie was too busy shopping they were late to the theatre and couldn’t get seats. The 8.15 session is very popular, so you need to be there by 8pm to get a seat. Tonight they put notices on the disabled row seats and the three rows in front reserved for those with mobility issues - not that that really helped!

We were exhausted by the end of the show and got an early night, as a port day was ahead it was another early start.

Pete took some wonderful photos, this is just a handful of them!!