7 Feb. 2010 -- NZ, Wanaka and Milford Sound

We arrived in Wanaka just north of Queenstown and stayed for seven days. Wanaka is a resort town on Lake Wanaka where we enjoyed mountain views and a great stay at one of janet's timeshares. They had a waterslide at the pool,and she had never done that before and once she got started we coudn't get her to stop




This day we booked a tour of Milford Sound. A magnificent body of water in Fiordland National Park. The tour combined a flight over the mountains to the west, landing at the Fiord, taking a tour boat out to the open ocean and back; then flying back to our resort in Wanaka.




We flew in this small seven seater. Our tour consisted of the two of us, two children and their parents.



Janet's seat was up front with the pilot. She got to hear all the chatter between the pilot and controllers which we in the back didn't hear.



The flight took us over tall snow covered mountains, sometimes very close to the jagged peaks.



A scene of Milford Sound looking away from the sea back towards the landing strip.









Several falls on the tour. At the bottom of one of them, our tour guide took the boat up close and we got a shower.








On the way back home we flew through these passes.



High in the mountains we looked down and saw many glacial pools.



On the flight back to Wanaka this was our approach.



The town of Wanaka. Our resort was not far from the beach.



While in Wanaka we saw professional cricket games on TV and one day we happened upon this pickup game in the park.



In Wanaka at a tourist trap called Puzzling World there was this huge maze and was it difficult!. We were warned that once inside the average time to complete it without bailing out was an hour. Took all of that to make the many wrong turns. The bridges didn't help, just led to more maze.



The end of the maze, and it was a welcome sight.



On the lawn at Puzzling World Janet is holding up the tower with just her palm.