1st - 3nd Dec - Milford Sound

The drive from Franz Josef to Queenstown was long and boring, with few stops except for lunch, I suppose it's the Magic bus not the miracle bus and nobody can make a long drive fun. At least along the way we saw all the sheep NZ is famous for, we were starting to think it was all a lie as in North Island and the north of South Island not a sheep did we see, however there were more sheep than an insomniac could count down here.

Queenstown is much larger than I expected and there are lots of bars and restaurants to frequent, mostly tourist hangouts cos the town does basically nothing else these days.

The trip to Milford Sound, which more correctly named is Milford Fijord, was interesting snaking along the valleys, surrounded by massive mountains and rain. Rain, rain and more rain, this area of NZ is famous for it - they get 7000mm of rain a year that makes Scotland look like a desert. The only good thing about the rain is all the amazing waterfalls it creates and there were many.

The boat down Milford Fijord cruised out into the water to the coast passing hundreds of thundering waterfalls along the way. The best bit of the journey for me was the dolphins who graced us with their presence, swimming along infront of the boat for 10 minutes as we all watched, oohing and aahing as they jumped out of the water. I was amazed at how fast they swam inches from the boats hull, they were totally amazing.

The other wildlife spotted were a coloney of seals and a couple of tiny penguins like the ones we saw in the Galapagos islands. They were really cute jumping along the shore, unelegantly wobbling along to their burrows, how different from in the sea.

On the 3rd Dec Mairi and I parted company - no we didn't fall out - I was going to Australia and Mairi staying a few weeks longer in NZ to do some more site seeing. We are meeting up again in OZ in a few weeks time - so no tears or trantrums please.

I took a non magic bus up to Christchurch where I was flying to Melbourne from. Unfortunately the bus didn't stop along the way at the sites, as Magic had done, so I missed the photo opertunities in MacKenzie country, Mt Cook and the fantastic blue lakes along the drive. NZ is really beautiful and theres so much to do - I've barely scratched the surface.