Midford overnight cruise and longest driving day

Our journey from Queenstown to Midford sound started 8am as I wasn’t sure how is the road condition and we had a hard deadline to get there before 3:45pm. We didn’t stop at the many spots to take pic, the overall scenery of the drive was amazing as usual. There was one part of the drive that really scared me, that’s the Hommer tunnel. It took 20 years to build this tunnel that crossed a big mountain, 1.2 km long and single lane. It was a steep uphill in a narrow road to get there, once in, we realized that it was a hill down! It’s like going to the middle of the earth, dark, and scary! I took a video of it and kept telling husband to slow down!!! That was the scariest 90 sec drive because of the unknown and in darkness.

Once we went out from the tunnel, after some winding roads (what’s new?), we got to the terminal, super early 1pm. What a relief. We couldn’t find a nearby parking so we parked near the basin to have some food, enjoy the view, recover from the scary tunnel and ready to board at 3:45pm. The ship is an old fashion ship, super cool.

we got briefed about the ship, our water activity for the evening, dinner time

then we sailed to some waterfalls, stunning mountain views and learned about the history of this place, probably one of the most remote places in the world, and the only place of the Fiordland park that is accessible to people.

we got ready for our boat tour near the shore

the funniest part of this tour was someone who was kayaking flipped, so we witnessed how he got rescued

we had some free time before dinner, as others were jumping into the freezing lake water, so we played board game as a family. It was fun, especially for the girls as we rarely play board games with them

girls played some piano when it was empty

7pm dinner buffet was served. Food was super nice, all kinds of meat and plenty of vegan options. Sofia’s

mine

NZ national dessert: Pavlova

we went to sleep past 9pm. I continued to sleep super well while daddy woke up 2am and wandered around the boat.

The weather continued to be sunny. Our guide said it never happened as this place is the wettest place on earth. She said she’d never seen this sunny condition for so long (12 hrs?).

we had breakfast at 7am, Lizzy was still very sleepy

Sofia fully awake

then enjoyed the view while the boat sailed to the Tasman sea. Thanks to the good weather, we didn’t feel it bumpy at all, which is never the case. Then I packed up. This is our cabin, small but cozy

still super cold and windy. We were lucky to see the small dolphins jumping in the water, and the seals taking a sun bath. We didn’t see the small pinguins as it was not the season.

as we got off the board and walked to our car, we saw a big flyless bird, native to NZ.

then we started our longest driving date of this entire trip, 540km to get to Lake Takepo. We started at 9:10am and only arrived 6:10pm. The drive was not as scary but still winding and long. And we got stopped by an police officer. Oh well. We got to experience that. We weren’t going fast. It was an open space road and downhill, so we got to 120km/hr when the limit was 100. We saw a policy car crossing by us and then he turned around to follow us, with the light on but no sound at first, and then with sound. So we stopped and not sure what would happen next. Thankfully the policy officer was super kind, not what we expected (Lizzy said: I was expecting he tell us: all hands up with a gun pointing us!). He told us we were above the speed limit, he issued us a ticket and let us go. We will receive the ticket by email. Oh well… what an experience. The only moment that we went above the limit, we got caught up.

Daddy had few quick nap stops to survive the drive but finally we got here. We passed by many good sights but nobody was in mood to stop. We just wanted to get to the destination. Girls napped most of the ride. I managed to stay awake to talk to husband and provided him with snack, water, and neck massage.

Lake Takepo lakefront with a playground, Lizzy got a zipline ride after our dinner.

We are staying here two nights before driving to Christchurch for our final two days.

I am not sure what we will do in Lake Takepo, likely to be just some walking trails nearby that don’t involve driving. Daddy will take a day off to recover 🙂