Milford Sound

Hey everyone! I just came home from a road trip weekend to Milford Sound. It was beautiful and a really fun trip. Five of us (myself, Sarah, Eli from 2 doors down and the Irish – Conor and Kev) rented a car and drove to a small town called Te Anau on Friday afternoon, which is about 5 hours from Dunedin and 2 hours from Milford Sound. If you are going to Milford Sound this is where you generally have to stay because there is only one lodge in Milford Sound. Before we left we found out that we had to bring snow chains because there would be snow on the roads!!! Keep in mind that our plan was to kayak around Milford Sound for 4 hours. It was pretty cold, but fortunately the kayaking company had lots of warm and waterproof gear for us to stay warm. So we kayaked around, saw seals and lots of rainbows and learned a little bit about the area from our guide. Milford Sound is definitely one of the most beautiful places in New Zealand with huge mountains, waterfalls, and wildlife.
We stayed at a hostel in Te Anau both nights and ate delicious Chinese food on Friday and Italian on Saturday. On Sunday we thought about staying and doing something in Te Anau, but it was supposed to rain all day so instead we took the “scenic route” back to Dunedin, which was actually beautiful. When you are driving around New Zealand there are literally times where you look out the window and are just in awe of how beautiful it is. It was really cool because now it is cold enough that a lot of the mountains are snowcapped and we drove though snowy areas at higher elevations. At one point we stopped on the side of the road and had a snow ball fight and made a snowman. A few minutes later another car pulled over and two random guys from New Zealand decided to join in our snowball fight. They were cool until one of them kept asking if any of us had a bad back because he was convinced he could work miracles and fix our ailments….kind of weird. We also stopped in the “sausage capital of New Zealand” and Invercargill, which everyone tells you there is no point going to and it’s kind of true….but still a good time and it probably has a lot of the most southernmost things in the world.
In other news, I spent a straight 10 hours on campus yesterday, which is definitely a record for here, although kind of normal for home…believe it or not I’m actually doing schoolwork! I’m hoping on going somewhere again this weekend but I don’t know where yet....maybe tramping…so many options!