Milford Sound

Milford Sound
For those of you who don't know the Milford sound, stop reading this and google image it. You back? Ok, those pictures don't even come close to capturing it. We've both seen Hawaii, Costa Rica, Patagonia, and Puerto Iguazzu, and as great as all of those places are, Milford Sound is hands down the most impressive place we've ever seen. We arrived about 8:30 in the morning, and some how it wasn't raining (side note: Milford Sound is, by some metrics, the wettest inhabited place on earth. It rains 187 days a year on avg.) We took a cruise around the sound which was spectacular. There is only a dock and two lodges built on the sound, other than that it's untouched. The sides of the mountains are covered completely in trees and plants, and might be the greenest place I've ever seen. In the morning, the water is so calm it almost creates a perfect reflection of the surrounding landscape. It's also so clear, you can see the fish and seals swimming in the water next to the boat. The cliffs surrounding the water are around 4000 ft tall. You get so close to them though, you forget until you see another 100 ft, 3 story boat look like toy across the water. This needs to be put on everyones bucket list. We attached some pictures below, but like I said earlier, it won't at all do it justice. The area is also known for the Milford Trek, which is a 4 day hike and touted as the #1 hike in the world by lonely planet (you need to make reservations 6-12months in advance to get a permit to do it though), and everyone we encountered who did it looked like they could die happy.

It started to rain in the afternoon, so we decided to make our way towards Queenstown. We stopped about an hour outside and freedom camped on the shores of the lake outside Queenstown. We found a dry spot under a tree, parked the van, and just enjoyed the scenery. It was raining and still really cold, so we decided to try and make a fire. Unfortunately, it had been raining for about 5 hours at that point and all the wood was wet. For those of you who don't know, I basically spent the better half of year on disability watching Man vs Wild and Duel Survival. Now pay attention... according to Cody Lundin the trick to making a fire when most of the wood is damp is to find enough dry material to get the fire going (thank god for free hotel/accommodation guide books at the airport!). Set damp wood just outside the reach of the flames but so they are close the one of the hottest points of the fire. After 30 minutes or so, there is a good chance you'll have wood dry enough to keep your fire going. WELL IT WORKS!!! We had the fire going for a few hours with plenty of wood to spare. I feel confident I can now survive light rain at any future point in my life, thank you Discovery Channel

(Most of the pics below are from Milford)