Day 15 - Milford Experience 7 - Queenstown to Milford Sound

[arcadiagt5]

A couple of enjoyable but not long rides, a lot of driving time, and a pleasant cruise on Milford Sound.

Today was a long day, possibly overlong given the time constraint. In an attempt to get a reasonable amount of riding in we left the hotel early and drove to the base of The Remarkables ski field to start the ride along Lake Wakatipu towards Kingston. I especially wanted to do this ride again as I remembered it being really pretty last time and I wasn't disappointed. Unfortunately it was a very cold morning and warming up seemed to take forever so I was fairly slow along this stretch. [Aside: honesty compels me to admit that there were photo stops along the way :) ]

I arrived at Kingston just after the Kingston Flyer had left for a bit of morning tea while Ingelise rode on to Fairlight. We packed the trike away and drove to Fairlight arriving there in time to get some good photos of the Kingston Flyer as it headed back to Kingston.

After that we drove to Te Anau for lunch and then on to the Homer Tunnel with a couple of stops to stretch our legs and/or get photo ops. We managed to get to the Homer Tunnel with enough time in hand for Rosco to let us ride the rest of the way to Milford Sound.

The Homer Tunnel ends at about 1270m above sea level. 18Km away Milford Sound is at sea level. Gentle reader at this point please allow me to just say "Wheeeeeeee!"

Oh and the scenery was pretty neat when I was slow enough to actually look at it.

After that overnight bags were sorted out, bikes covered with a tarpaulin to keep the keas off, trike locked in the trailer etc and we boarded the Milford Mariner for our overnight cruise.

Much pretty scenery ensued, especially during the ride on the tender boat, and I'll probably allow the photos to speak for themselves once I sort through them. NB: If you ever do this trip the slideshow after dinner is worth seeing.

And here are the usual stats:

Day	Max	Ave	Distance	Time	BJ Rank	Against
15	65.6	21.2	54.44	2:24:18	857	4860
		Totals	680.65	37:56:12

Tomorrow the boat will return to Milford and we'll be off to Te Anau for a couple of nights. We should be able to get some decent rides in tomorrow.