Kayaking Milford Sound
Hello blog!
WARNING: this blog post contains extremely wholesome content!!! Please prepare yourself to die of jealousy.
As you may have read in my previous post, I planned to go kayaking in Milford Sound instead of jumping on a flight to Bali last Monday. Although I am very disappointed in the fact that I had to give up my trip to Bali (which would have been amazing), I’m also so grateful for the chance to do one of the things that has been on my bucket list for SO LONG.
On Monday last week, Amy and Ryan picked me up in the Polly Trolley and we headed out to Te Anau, which is the closest town to Milford Sound. It was a three and a half hour drive from Dunedin and we left at noon, which meant we arrived in Te Anau at 3:30pm. We dropped off Polly and our bags in the hostel we had booked: Te Anau Lakefront Backpackers and decided to walk around town. We walked around the Te Anau Lake, went into shops and had an early dinner at a restaurant called The Fat Duck. I had seafood chowder and it was so YUM. After dinner, we went to the town bar called The Ranch and we stayed there for the next 4 hours lol. The three of us drank Speight’s beers and Canadian Clubs and played the slot machines like idiots. We also met some interesting characters, one of whom was a regular at The Ranch and everyone called him ‘Mungo Jerry’ (I don’t think it was a Cats, the musical, reference but who knows). Mungo Jerry was winning big on the slot machine and he gave each of us 30 New Zealand dollars in cash for some reason, which was pretty cool of him. By the end of the night, we were besties with the bartender and we had a blast.
On Tuesday morning, we woke up at 7am to drive from Te Anau over to Milford Sound (1 hr 45 min drive) because we needed to be ready for kayaking by 9am. We arrived at the sound at 8:45am, but we got a little lost and we ended up being 20 minutes late for kayaking. Whoops!
Once we finally found the correct area, we saw our GoOrange kayaking group and quickly made our way over to them. We apologized profusely for being late, but our guides were so relaxed and cool about it! In addition to three of us, there were five other people also kayaking with GoOrange which made 8 people all together. Our two guides got all of us suited up with thermals, life jackets, and kayaking skirts so we could stay as dry as possible and then we went over the safety instructions. After we completed all of the formalities, everyone paired up another person because we would be in two-person kayaks for the day. Amy and Ryan paired up, and I paired up with a nice middle-aged women named Madeline. Madeline, lucky for me, was a native of New Zealand and an avid kayaker! She opted to sit in the back seat, so I could sit in the front and see everything, which was so kind! I was really lucky to be paired with her because she knew exactly what she was doing (she also did most of the work so I could sit back and relax for most of the day; shout out to Madeline for being freaking awesome at kayaking!).
Once Madeline and I had paddled out into the sound, I truly could not believe where I was. It was the most surreal and beautiful thing I have ever seen; the weather was absolutely perfect and the water was calm as well. I felt so at peace and so grateful for the opportunity to kayak straight through one of the most beautiful places on earth. The photos you see in this post can’t even begin to capture the size and scale of Milford, the fiords, the mountains, the sunshine, the water and the other kayakers. It was amazing.
We stopped for lunch on a beach at the end of the sound at 1pm. For lunch I ate the PB&J that I had packed for myself and we got to talk with our two guides about their lives and how they ended up leading kayakers around the sound. One of our guides was from Tasmania and the other was from the UK, so it was pretty cool to hear their stories. After lunch, we drank hot chocolate and prepared to get back into our kayaks to end the day. Madeline and I resumed our positions (her in the back and me in the front) and we successfully pushed our boat back into the water. The next portion of the day was the only time we both had to work hard because we were paddling against the wind. Our guides led us to the very middle of the sound and it took us 30 minutes of hard, vigorous paddling against the waves and wind to reach our destination. Once we made it to the middle, we linked up all of our kayaks in a horizontal line and released a giant tarp that operated as a sail and carried us into the shore. Once we released the sail/tarp, we all got to sit back and take in the views as the wind brought us back in and it was so so cool!! SO COOL.
We made it back to the shore at 3pm (meaning we kayaked for about 5 hours) and changed back into our regular clothes. Before we left, I exchanged contacts with my new pal Madeline and gave her a big hug goodbye. We also invited our tour guides to have drinks with us at The Ranch since we were all headed to Te Anau and they agreed! The three of us (Ryan, Amy and I) got back into the Polly Trolley and drove the hour and 45 back to Te Anau for food and drinks at The Ranch (I did not drink since I was designated driver on the way back to Dunedin - don’t worry). Our guides showed up to The Ranch about 45 minutes after we did and we enjoyed a couple drinks with them before hitting the road back to Dunedin. I drove us three and a half hours back and arrived home at 10:30pm. I fell asleep immediately after hitting the pillow.
One of the best days I have ever had.
Thanks for reading :)
