Flativity #1: Milford Sound

Kia Ora! :)

I know its a while ago since I wrote the last post, but Uni was quite stressful in the last two weeks and some assignments were due. Nevertheless: Work hard, travel hard... So thats why we decided to do our first flativity (Flat - Activity) last weekend. I do not know if I told you yet, but my 4b Girls are awesome, two Kiwis and two Americans in our cute (and cold) flat. As, for what reason ever (because it is incredible!!!), the Kiwi Girls also did not visit Milford Sound yet, we decided to go there. For the ones that are not familiar with Milford Sound: it is a fiord in the south-west of NZ, so a `just` 6 hours drive from Dunedin. But I will start at the beginning...

We started on Friday afternoon. First grocery shopping (I mean you never know what can happen in one weekend, so we bought a bunch of sweets, snacks and of course wine), then the first highlight: Waihola. The hightlight here (and I could not stop lauging for ages) the city sign which says: No hospital, no doctor, one cemetery! But hey we survived. After that we stopped at some villages for some pictures and of course toilet breaks (with 5 girls this can be quite stressful :D). But what I love the most: Just sitting in the car and watching New Zealands landscape and nature. No place is boring, everything is so impressive. In the evening we arrived in Te Anau, this is the biggest city before Milford Sound, but still 2 hours before that. We checked in and went out for dinner, and just had an relaxing and funny evening at the room.
At the next morning we started quite early as we wanted to do a 3 hours return hiking tour before actually going to Milford Sound. On the way to the starting point we stopped at the Mirror Lakes, as you might can imagine... The lake was really like a mirror! I never saw something like that before, the reflection was perfect and so beautiful, have a look:

The water was so calm and clear, amazing! After that we reached the starting point for the Key Summit Walk. The weather was unfortunately not the best, it was rainy a little bit, but we decided to start and have a look if it is getting worse. But we were lucky, the weather was stable and the view on top was stunning. But I just realised that I have to train moooooore, oh my god! My calves are so weak :( but as you believe or not I am walking a lot and (hold on...) fast here! So I am getting there :D The hike was amazing and we did some pictures on top and walked down again.

Lovely 4b girls 

After that we did a small stop at the Humboldt Falls, huge waterfalls (or better say high, but quite thin), but nevertheless very impressive! But as it was starting to rain harder, we decided to drive to Milford Sound directly. In order to get there, you have to drive through a small tunnel (okay small for me, but for the Americans it was huuuuge - seriously it was like 3 minutes in the tunnel :D).
When we arrived the first shock: They told us because it should rain quite hard over night that the tunnel might be closed for the next days... So there was the possibility that we getting  stuck in Milford! But no risk, no fun... And as you might imagine now, nothing happened in the end ;) As it was quite late, we decided to do the boat tour tomorrow and just did s mall tour to the `village` and cooked dinner afterwards.
On Sunday we went on the boat to go into the Sound.

It was amazing, even though the weather was not the best. In summer it must be even more impressive, but the good thing about the rain was many, many, many waterfalls... EVERYWHERE! So cool :) The boat trip was quite stormy and rainy, prove is here:

But it was worse it! It was so windy that some waterfalls did not reach the water, the water was blown away before and it looked like the waterfalls was going up again. Never saw something like that... Amazing!
After the boat trip we went straight back to Dunedin as it was a 6 hours drive.

So the first successful flat weekend with amazing girls, a lot of laughing, cool places and a cold afterwards.  
I am off now to Tonga... I little but of sun and warmth for the next week. So I will report after the week.
See ya guys :)