We had went on what turned out to be a very luxurious overnight cruise through Doubtful Sound. Doubtful Sound is basically a very long, narrow inlet from the ocean, surrounded by very steep, high mountains. All the "sounds" (actually fiords) were carved out by glaciers. The weather was very misty and quite wet when we were there, which gave the narrow sound a very mysterious look. It was so cool. When it rained, waterfalls poured down the cliffs surrounding because the water had no other place to collect higher up. At one point during the cruise we got to go out on kayaks, which gave a really cool perspective of the sound and also allowed us to go up right underneath some of the waterfalls! We also went for a quick dip in the ocean after...fortunately our boat had hot showers for afterwards! There was lots to see/do on the cruise...stopped by a huge seal colony, the boat drove right up under an overhang and someone filled up glasses of water from the waterfall gushing over the overhang (it tasted fresh and cold, although it was a bit brownish in colour...which apparently is due to the water "steeping" like tea in all the rainforest vegetation it passes through), and Mike and I definitely ate our money's worth of the delicious food that continually flowed out of the kitchen. We also met an Israeli couple and hung out with them the whole time. It was really fun.
After the cruise, we drove partway up to Milford Sound on the long, twisty road, and camped at one of the little sites on the side of the road. In the morning, despite the weather warning for Milford, we went on a 1 and 1/2 hour cruise of the sound. It was POURING. We were soaked from the walk over from the parking lot. My jeans took 2 days to dry. The cruise was actually really fun even though the visibility was poor, since there were TONS of waterfalls everywhere and the wind was so crazy it was actually really fun to stand out on the deck...winds were up to 140 km/h! And the water was very rough. It was so windy, in fact, that some of the waterfalls were actually being blown UPWARD. I have never seen such a thing, and probably never will again.
The weather turned out to be not so fortunate in the end, because the long road out of Milford was closed down for most of the afternoon. The waterfalls all throughout had washed over the roads, carrying big chunks of rock and gravel. We had to wait for 5 hours before the roads reopened and we could drive out in a convoy. We were sitting in a cafe that whole time with many other stranded people, and when someone came in and said "if you want out, go now. the roads are opening briefly" everyone cleared out soooo fast and literally ran to their cars. Including us. It was really funny. We all had thought we would be stranded until the next morning at the earliest, so it was great news.
Back at Queenstown...it was still raining. Not much exciting news to update you on there. Oh wait, we went to the craziest indoor mini golf course I have ever played on. For example, one hole literally had mini chairlifts that took your ball up a ski hill structure, where your ball rolled down and fell into one of three holes, which took it to some other location...it was crazy. We also went to some cute little theatre in Arrowtown to watch Boy, a Kiwi movie about a Maori kid. It was pretty good.
Not sure where we'll be heading next...our plan originally was to go to Mt Cook, but apparently that sucks in the rain so we may have to reroute. Then on to Christchurch where we fly back to Auckland, and then fly out again to SE Asia!
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