Day 8 Queenstown 22nd September 2010 'A bus trip to no where and back again.'

Today saw us waking a little before 6am (or was it a little before 4am) to hopefully do a boat trip on Milford Sound. But unfortunately it was not to be. The manager was spot on when he doubted that we would get there. We did have a lovely relaxing bus trip with Milford Select to just past Knobs Flat. We left the van park about 6.30am and arrived back about 3.30pm. It was a long day but stress free as we could all take in the scenery. It is hard to believe even now looking at the photos how the weather could change so drastically from clear and cold to snowing quite heavily, not once but a few times in the one way part of the trip of roughly four and a half hours. Our bus driver was actually quite amazed that they even gave the go ahead for the trip in the first place. Our understanding is they closed the road just before Homer’s Tunnel yesterday afternoon to reopen this morning only for our driver to find just after Knobs Flat that they were closing it again at three. Our boat trip would have finished about 2.45 so we would have been stuck there overnight with not much food and little accommodation. This perturbed us less than the Swedish tourists who were flying back in next 24hrs. Our bus company was very considerate in this respects another we found out with several buses operating today pushed one through we presume on a greatly shortened cruise to return before road closure. We hope the travelers got a choice as the cruises would have not got a refund where as those who were turned around may have. It appears we got a full refund on our card time will tell. We booked through ‘I site, which incidentally is a great information service throughout NZ, so we are relatively confident. The lady dealing with the refund had to contact Milford Select for some details and was amused that the person on the other end was surprised we wanted a refund. Booked to see Milford Sound only got three quarters of the way, gee why would we want a refund. We figured a partial refund certainly not all.

We did a brief stop at a place called Mirror Lakes. On a clear day they apparently mirror the surround montains perfectly. They were certainly mirroring the bushes etc around the lakes but 'visibility' was not as good.

We returned to a very wet and cold Queenstown. We checked back into our new abode which is a one room cottage but still in the same van park. It is a bargain at $60 aus for all of us. We then drove back into the township. The surrounding scenery is beautiful as it is on the banks of a lake surrounded by snow capped mountain. However the town is like an alpine version of Noosa or Arlie Beach. Potentially beautiful but very commercialized to cater for the tourist dollars. Shops down the street alternate snow ski shops, booking agents and food outlets with the odd nice souvenir shop dotted in between. That for some is wonderful but did not thrill us.

Tomorrow if the is conducive we are hoping to do the Gondola and luge and drive to Arrowtown on our way to Wanaka which again is roughly an hour away.