Instead, we woke up early at our campsite at Milford Sound Lodge and got ready for our kayaking trip. The sand flies were up as well so we rushed to the lodge to eat breakfast and clean up. Since we were going to Te Anau later in the day, we had to go ahead and take our tent down and pack up our sleeping bags. We literally just rolled everything up in one big pile and threw it in the car. We just didn't want to be exposed to the sand flies any more than we had to.
Chris, from Rosco's Kayaking Adventures, met us at the lodge at 7:15 and went over some paperwork with us. There were 6 other people in our group and we all followed Chris' van to the starting point which was only about 3 minutes from the lodge. When we got there, they gave us our gear and went over some basic safety instructions and jumped in our kayaks.
There were a few people who had zero prior kayaking experience so right away we knew it would be a slow day. We paddled around Deepwater Basin practicing some kayaking skills and then headed out to the fjords. Side note: A sound is created by a stream or river flowing out and is usually relatively shallow. A fjord is created by a glacier cutting through rock and is usually deep. The Milford Sound is misnamed and is really a fjord and is up to 400+ meters deep. The mountains literally rise up out of the water so the water is already very deep just a few meters from the sides.
The wind was starting to pick up so Chris took us into some protected coves to start off.
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| A quiet cove in Milford Sound |
The coves were very peaceful and quiet and the water was clear and very shallow. We paddled around a bit in one cove and then went to another arm of the sound that was also out of the wind. Here we saw a seal eating a big trout! There were seagulls flying in the air dive-bombing the seal trying to get scraps or steal the trout. The seal was having none of it and was thrashing around in the water trying to avoid the seagulls. Eventually, the seagulls lost interest and the seal finished its meal. The awesome part of this was that it didn't care that we were right next to it the whole time. We tried shooting some video but it was difficult in the kayak. We got some pictures though.
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| Trout for dinner! |
It was still early in our trip so we all rafted up and basically drifted back to our cove and got to know each other a little better. Once back at the cove, we paddled back to the boat ramp and the trip was over. We didn't get to see as much as we would have liked because of the weather but it was still a nice trip. Chris said that the conditions we were experiencing were the worst that he had seen all summer and that the waves were twice as big as anything he had been in so far. I guess we were lucky!
We dried ourselves off and jumped in the car to head to Te Anau. Bernard made sure he drove 100km/h and it took about 1.5 hours to get there. By the time we arrived we were starving since we had only eaten breakfast and a snack after the kayak trip. We found a restaurant and had a good lunch - veggie burger for AM; bacon, beef & egg burger for B. Good coffee, too!
After filling ourselves up, we went to the Great Lakes Holiday Park right down the road and checked in. We were really roughing it this time. This place had full showers (with hairdryers!), cable t.v., lodge with fireplace, full kitchen (rent pots and pans and dishes for $5), washer/dryers, internet and our tent site was on a nice manicured lawn :-) The best thing was that it was only $35!
We set up our tent and then went to the grocery store to buy some dinner and food for the next day. Dinner was pretty simple and we just ate some green beans, eggs, carrot and raisin salad and some ginger beer (kind of like root beer) to wash it all down.
It was getting late even though it was still bright out so we showered and hit the hay around 10p.
Tomorrow we have a full day at Doubtful Sound (fjord)!
1 comment:
So THAT'S where all the good surf was, eh? At Milford Sound and not the beaches!! :)
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