What an awesome, great, wonderful, amazing day! Went with Flightseeing Wanaka to Milford Sound – the best thing I’ve ever done!
It began a bit stressful since of course we were late. How else should it be, when I’m involved! In addition we took a little detour because we overlooked the airport in the first place. I was anxious about missing my flight, so we parked Harry somewhere and went looking for the right hangar.
After a short search we found the check in and our pilot R. welcomed us with a handshake and smalltalk. I got a coffee to wake up from yesterday’s party and to calm down – no more stress necessary. We had lots of time, so E. brought Harry next door and I got some clothes out of my plastic box „wardrobe“ and changed.
Meanwhile a British couple arrived with a seven month old baby. They were the only other passengers. With them our little group was complete and we started to an hour scenic flight to Milford Sound across the Southern Alps.
The plane was even smaller than the one to Steward Island and the air conditioning was an open window, which we soon closed. It’s rather cold in the air, especially flying just above snow and ice covered mountains.
We all got to wear headsets so that we could hear R. telling us information about everything as we flew over it – we could even ask him questions back. We also got to listen in as he spoke to the air traffic controllers as he moved through certain points on his trip. The added bonus of the headsets was that they blocked out most of the noise – it’s very loud sitting with the engine almost beneath your feet!
First we got to fly over Wanaka and the surrounding lake. R. pointed out one of the larger islands in the middle of the lake that had it’s own little lake in the middle of it – cool! Soon we climbed up over the snow capped mountains, which is apparently unusual for this time of year, but there had been snowfall the week before. As we got further over the mountains we started passing over glaciers. At one of the biggest of them R. pointed out a tramping hut that sleeps 18 people. It was a tiny red speck on the side of a huge mountain face, stuck between rock and ice. It was like trying to see a matchbox car on the side of a huge hill.
The hour seemed to go quickly and soon we found ourselves flying over the West Coast. We looped out over the ocean and flew back in up Milford Sound. As we entered the sound several ships were entering beneath us, including a huge P&O cruise ship that looked like just a little boat. Surrounded by huge mountains and with the sea stretching off into the distance it is almost impossible to see things in the correct perspective.
After landing at the top of Milford we all quickly jumped on a bus that took us to the awaiting boat for the cruise. R. wished us well as he went off to the lounge to read a book and wait for us to return. Seems like a terrible job he has – flying over some of the most beautiful mountains in the world and then sitting in the sun and reading a book.
The cruise was amazing. Describing it just doesn’t do it justice and of course I took a thousand pictures. There were enormous waterfalls, beautiful native bush and awesome tree avalanches. When we made it out to the ocean we were lucky enough to see dolphins. There were about 20 of them and instead of the tiny Hector’s dolphins we saw in Akaroa these were Southern Bottlenose dolphins and more than twice as big. They played in the wake of the boat and jumped out of the water in pairs.
Back at the dock R. was waiting for us and we all went back to the airstrip to fly back home. As we had been promised we were the last plane leaving for the day. We took a slightly different way back to Wanaka so that we got to see more of the spectacular country. The highlight was Southern Falls – the 5th largest standing waterfall in the world. Happy and with many wonderful impressions we made it back to Wanaka in the early evening.
We had talked with the English couple a lot on the cruise and had got along very well with them. Unfortunately they couldn’t join us for a drink because of the baby. I was tired at any rate from a long day full of new and exciting things. Probably I will go to bed now, good night!
