Up and out early today…Another glorious morning, today we are riding to Milford Sound. It is truly hard to describe the beauty of this countryside. I find myself in total awe, complete with jaw open…yes in my helmet, and sometimes even drooling….ha ha ha! Or maybe Im drooling because I have just bitten the side of my cheek again…DOH!
Kev is working on editing the now many hours of video that we have captured on our trip. We have decided that we need a small crew to take dictation, pictures and edit videos. Pack up our gear, go grocery shopping, and provide the odd massage……dreaming! This is a bloody lot of work mate! You find yourself quite beat up after 6 hours of riding, then blogging, downloading video and pictures is not exactly the most pressing thoughts on your mind…..let alone finding internet!…OK got that off my chest…on we go….
We rode through some decent rain spells on our way to Milford Sound. We pulled over and covered our tank bags, but felt as though we could make it through with out rain suiting ourselves up. It became quite chilly over the passes registering down to freezing, we took it slow just incase we hit ice. Despite the weather we were making good time…we had to make it to the backpackers hostel before 2pm as we had a kayaking and hiking trip booked. Muddy, chilly and hungry we pulled up at 1:30pm hoping that our cabin was ready…it was not! We changed out of our damp riding gear and into hiking clothes had a quick bite to eat, tossed our belongings in a storage closet and hoped aboard the van excited to hike Milford Sound. I booked this trip through Roscco's, and had split up the activities over 2 days, just incase we were spent! We changed into some rather sexy kayaking attire in a large tent by the water, squeezed into our 2 maned kayaks, and set a good pace across the sound to the hiking trail. Kev was controlling the rudder, I was setting the pace….ahh they don't call them divorce boats for nothing!!!…ha ha ha! Thank god we arrived at land sooner rather than later…No really…it was getting a tad choppy out there, and I was glad to be on solid ground for a bit. The weather can change on a split second out here, you can just feel the excitement and challenge in the air all around you. We hiked about 5k up the Milford Trail before returning. Adam, our guide poured us some hot Raro, it hit the spot! Raro is a gatoraide or cordial type beverage, and heated it is quite interesting. There was one other younger couple with us and the pace was decent. Truly an untouched and somewhat prehistoric feel to this beautiful land….just amazing. The paddle back was smoother, the tide was out and the wind had calmed…we had survived the divorce boats, and we were truly buggered now! We checked into our super small 10x10 metal cubed cabin, unload the bikes, and headed to dining room for a beer. Wiped out, cooking was not an option… it was veggie's, hummus, cheese and biscuits, (crackers for the yanks) and wine for dinner. Sacked out by 8pm! That night the skies opened up it poured, and poured and poured. It was absolutely awesome to be in a metal cabin…can you imagine the sound?
It was still raining when we woke, and coming down pretty hard. Today we were scheduled to spend 4 hours kayaking Milford Sound, looks like it was going to be a wet one?! Amazingly enough the sky cleared up, how lucky can we get? Kev had seemed to master the rudder, our strokes were in sync, we were looking good! We paddled from Deep Water Cove into the fiord Milford Sound where we marveled at some amazing waterfalls, rock formations and cheeky wildlife. It was truly a fantastic experience! The sand flies were biting any area of exposed skin that they could find, so our hands and faces are pretty bitten up… damn they itch! Wind burned, sore and bitten we were truly satisfied, yeah we got our monies worth!
