Videos at bottom!

	We start in Queenstown at around 7:30am. The first stop is Te Anu, the "big" city on the way. Another pretty lake, and of course:	Ducks!	Cute cafe name in Te Anu.	The huge scar on the hillside in the middle is from a "tree avalanche".	Here we are entering the Fjordland National Park - a huge preserve around Milford Sound.

		The coach stops at a few scenic areas. The first is "Mirror Lakes"		There's just a little bit of ripple on the water, but still beautiful how it mirrors the puffy clouds.	Cute reversed sign, so its reflection on the water is readable.

			New Zealand has very few bats. That is too bad. But it also has no mosquitos! That is good. :-)		Interesting knot-like tree trunk.

	This shows the road (the one and only road) from Milford Sound down to Te Anu at the bottom left. From Te Anu the road goes east (right) then up, further north than Miford, to Queenstown. 45 minutes from Queenstown to Milford as the crow flies, 4-5 hours by road.	We drive by a couple waterfalls.	Milford is actually having a drought - 48 hours with no rain. So we only see the year-round waterfalls.	Mountain peaks tower around	Sorry about the dirt splotches on the coach windows.

	To the right side, more beautiful mountains.		If there were rain (we hit a rare dry sunny day) all of these hillsides would be waterfalls.	The mountains are too high for the road to go over, so there's a tunnel, over a kilometre long.	Each lane is 3.81 metres high. The bus is 3.9 metres so has to go through the middle.

	Each side has 15 minutes to pass through, then the other direction gets a turn. Our bus was lucky both ways so we didn't have to wait at all.	Pretty waterfall just before the tunnel		Twisty curvy road as we come out the other side of the tunnel. It is all turns from there on.	The mountains are shrouded in clouds above the twisty road.

		A native (destructive) bird.	The bus actually slopes - the rear is much taller than the front. Stadium seating.	The coach stops at "The Chasm" for another short hike. Very humid!	A dry streambed.

	A tiny stream with water.	Footbridge high above the "chasm" stram. This is looking upstream.	Looking downstream just above a waterfall. The white water is a long ways down.		The scupting of the rocks from the water is just amazing.

		Upstream, just before the chasm and all the scuplted rocks.	Amazing circles and shapes in the rocks.

		The sculpting of these rocks by the water is amazing.		In the middle, the orange / red flagging is a signal that there are possum traps under this tree. Don't go off trail!

		Back in the coach, crossing the little stream downstream of "The Chasm". You can see from its width what it must be like on a rainy day! Also just above the end of the rocks, what looks like another scar from a tree avalanche.		The signs are bi-lingual English and Maori. Both are official languages.	Our boat.

	Notice the mast for sails.	On board ~1pm, we get lunch as the ship starts down the sound. Blurry shot of our "obento" lunch.	Cute fish of soy sauce.		Much better than the "picnic" lunch. Glad we chose the obento.

	A small boat from another tour company catches up with ours to drop off someone's left-behind cell phone.	As we start down the sound, the sheer walls tower above us.	A couple sister ships are also doing the tour thing.	Pretty waterfall on the north side. We're following the south wall on the left and will come back on the other side.	zoom in.

	The white / dark line is the high tide line - lots of crustaceans on the rocks.	Another pretty one on the other side.	Beech trees cling to the rocks above us. You can see how precarious their perch is.	At the entrance to the sound, about to go out into the Tasman Sea.	Looking back at the entrance to the sound

	Our wake.	Sue		Bob	Almost out of the sound. There is a big rock out at sea, we won't go out that far.

	Bob's art composition with the sails. Pretty. It's not too windy according to the skipper, so when we're out of the sound into the Tasman Sea, the sails go up.	Skipper says it's been weeks since it's been good enough weather to be able to put the sails up.	The boat pitches a more now, but the sails are pretty.

				The skipper lets us come in and look at his toys.

			Picture of Sue taking a picture

					We start to turn around - this is the south side of the entrance

	Looking directly at the entrance.	Doesn't look like an entrance.	Apparently Captain Cook sailed by here a few times before he got close in enough to realize that this is an entrance!	About to take the sails down.

	The north shore has what looks like a sandy beach.	close-up		Heading back in, you can see the sheer cliff walls.	A couple seconds later, with the new camera. Water colors change with the camera.

	pretty little waterfall	If it were raining, the whole cliff face would be waterfalls. The sound gets 7 metres of rain per year - so sunny days are rare.	Oh well, we got pretty sun instead.

	Pretty colors of the water.

	The boat ahead of us pauses near that big rock to its left.	We pause at a waterfall	Then we get to the big rock too. Seals!		We have no clue how they got that far above the waterline.

	Probably got there when the tide was higher.	More seals camoflauged among the rccky shore.		Looking straight up the sheer walls.	On to more waterfalls.

			This one's a biggie	The skipper put the boat's bow into the spray	It was cold!

	Backing away from that waterfall	More seals on the rocks on the left side.	Plane flies overhead (but our flight back got cancelled)	Coming up on beautiful Mitre Peak - the one with the glacier.	Boats do put in here, at the Underwater Observatory.

		We didn't have time on our coach tour to stop.	Caught a bird flying overhead.	Apparently you _can_ hike this peak, but there is zero trail, assistance, you're on your own.	I can see why it would draw a glacier-hiker, it's so pretty. They're trying to keep the area pristine.

	Almost finished, one final waterfall coming up on the left.	It's so pretty.	I had to take another picture.	Can you tell I liked this one?

		Heading into the wharf.			The airport. Plenty of C206's and choppers, but our plane cancelled on us. We coach back.

		Looking up - the coach had glass-top roof, tough to get photos through but very nice for sight-seeing.	All too soon, back in Te Anu. Toy on the lake!	Pretty float plane	tied to a bouy.

	Lots of deer farms	And sheep farms between Te Anu and Queenstown			Really does look like southern colorado

	except for all the sheep	Long daylight here - it's about 8pm as we're pulling back into Queenstown but it's still light out.

Videos of waterfalls in Milford Sound, from the boat.

0:19 Pan from our boat wake to shore to a beautiful waterfall

0:11 Pan from the bottom to the top of a waterfall

0:10 Spray from being nearly underneath a waterfall, and pan up to the top. AVI file

0:09 Gorgeous waterfall up ahead

0:05 Same one

0:10 Closer in to it

0:15 Very close in AVI file

0:08 Very close in AVI file

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