Wednesday, November 7, 2018
This has been a long day! We left the hotel at 7:00 this morning. Lots of beautiful views along the way. It took a five hour bus ride to get to our destination of the day – a cruise on Milford Lake.
We stoped about every two hours for potty breaks and to stretch our legs. It started raining a little before noon. This area gets over 25 feet of rain a year! Yes! Feet!
There were a lot of waterfalls flowing off the cliffs of the mountains from the rainfall. The peaks and valleys of the mountains are still snow covered.
During the first two hours of our journey we passed field after field of sheep. It is lambing season so lots of baby lambs in the fields. Dairy farming is huge here too so saw lots of grass fed dairy cattle. They also had fields of domesticated red deer used for venison meat. It was nice to see bright green pastures.
We stopped at a place called The Chasm and took a 20 minute walk in the rain. We had a canopy of trees overhead. I’m glad I had picked up a rain jacket earlier. The walk offered views of waterfalls and sculptured rock formations formed from water running over the rocks. Lots of moss, fern and lichen on the trees. It was a beautiful walk even though we got wet and cold.
We took a one and one half hour cruise on a vessel. They served a buffet lunch onboard. It was windy and rainy while we were on the boat. The windows were fogged over so we didn’t get to see a lot. There were white caps on the water. We got rocked enough that walking around was a bit challenging. The waterfalls were running strongly and were beautiful. It was a relaxing ride.
We saw a seal. Looked for the penguins but didn’t see them.
After the cruise we headed back to Queenstown. It stopped raining and was partly sunny on the way back to the hotel.
Made a potty stop on the ride back and had internet for the first time since mid-morning. I quickly checked election results and was very pleased to see that Laura Kelly won the governor’s race. I haven’t seen details yet so don’t know how close it was.
Mid-term elections seem unimportant to me today as I am so far away down under.
Tomorrow we do two events. A 4WD Canyon experience in the morning and a cruise with a sheep farm experience in the late afternoon. It will be another fun day.
Grateful for all the beauty we saw today, grateful for a safe trip in the bus, and grateful for this adventure.