the leap: milford sound

the day after the pub crawl, i somehow managed to wake up in time to catch a 7:15 am bus that i had booked earlier in the week to take me to milford sound for the day. i was not feeling pleasant to say the least, but i picked myself up purely based on the premise that it was a long bus ride (about 4 hours each way) and i would be able to sleep most of the way. and i had already paid for the tour and an indian food lunch that came with my tour. it's like i'm a lunch order psychic.

this actually wasn't my bus, but i thought it was so that kind of counts right?

everyone loves a good "sheep in NZ" pic.

as i mentioned, the ride was fairly long and we made several stops on the way to see many of the different landmarks in the fiordland national park that we drove through to get to our destination. lucky for me, one of our stops was to a fresh mountain spring, where we were encouraged to drink water fresh from the mountain. i'm convinced that this river was to hang overs what the fountain of youth is to staying younger, as i'm pretty sure the fact that i survived this day and stayed awake the entire tour can only be explained by sheer miracle.

in a mystical, magical, field in the fiordland national park.

the mirror lakes.

river where we stopped to drink fresh mountain water. that may or may not have saved my life.

the chasm.

looking down from the bridge at the chasm.

we arrived at port to board our cruise through milford sound at about 1, and literally all i could think about was my boxed indian lunch. too bad the chicken included in the meal hadn't been plucked properly and the curry had no spice in it. i ate like 2 bites of rice (again where i'm convinced the miracle water came into play with my survival), and headed out to the deck to get some fresh air.

it's honestly probably best to leave most of the story telling in this post to the photos. given my state of mind at the time, it's probably a more accurate portrayal of what i was experiencing anyway.