From Wanaka we next drove to Queenstown - the supposed adventure capital of New Zealand. The place was where bungy jumping was invented, but has since then expanded into every type of crazy activity you can imagine. Jet boats? Check. Giant swing with 100m freefall? Check. Zorbing? Check. Unfortunately, we had a terrible first night there at the Lakeside Hostel (do NOT ever stay there) and then a good second night at the Aspen Lodge Backpackers. Not really willing to shell out $200+ to get our adrenaline fix, we decided to instead opt for the free option and hiked up Ben Lomond Pk. which is right outside of town. It was a bit like the Grouse Grind in Vancouver at first with a 1400m climb from our hostel in town and then along a ridge with nice views of Mount Aspiring Park.
Other than that, this town is worth skipping unless you want to relive the early years of living in a University dorm room. Needless to say, we were pretty happy to be on our way.
We debated quite a bit whether or not to go visit Milford Sound next since we heard that the crowds were pretty terrible and the place has an endless stream of tour buses passing through during the day; however, we still really wanted to see the Darren mountain range in Fiordland next to Milford which we heard was pretty spectacular. As a compromise, we decided to brave the crowds and do the touristy boat cruise through the sound the first day, and then stay a bit off the tourist path in the Darrens for the night at the New Zealand Alpine Club's Homer Hut which is a hub for climbing in the area. The next day we would try and scramble up the Barrier Knob summit.
We opted for the last cruise of the day, and surprisingly Milford was relatively quiet with the cruise not even half full!
Just as we were getting on our boat, the majority of people were hopping back onto tour buses for their return journey home leaving the place really quiet (there isn't many places to stay IN Milford sound, with the closest town with accommodations more than 100km away).
The fiord is amazing with it's dramatic mountain relief and high waterfalls falling from the glaciers above straight down into the ocean. Fine - it was REALLY impressive. A bit touristy, but if you can see past all the iPad laden tourists snapping photos for their Facebook profile, there is something really special here.
To get into and out of Milford Sound, you have to drive through this impressive 1 km long one lane tunnel bored through solid granite that connects two steep glacier carved valleys (providing the only road access to Milford). Homer Tunnel has traffic lights on either side to control the flow of traffic as only one direction can fit at a time. The construction started in the 1930's as a make work project during the Depression and was completed in the early 50's. Funny thing is that the traffic lights only work until 8pm.... not sure what happens then. Must be pretty exciting.
The next day after sleeping at the NZAC's Homer Hut we hiked up to Gertrude Saddle. The hike is a steep climb up from the valley to the saddle and was well worth it. I was blown away by the sheer granite faces surrounding us on all sides.
Once we got to the top of the saddle, we got a taste for the famous Fiordland weather. Within the span of 10 minutes the weather changed from sunny skies to strong wind and snow! We decided to wait things out and see what would happen.
The views of Milford Sound were amazing from the saddle (at least what we could see before it started snowing)!
Once the snow stopped and the wind died down, we continued up the ridge to the top of Barrier Knob. The last bit of the climb was definitely a scramble with some exposed sections since we had to take a roundabout route to avoid the small pocket glacier near the summit.
The view from the the top was amazing!
The Darrens are beautifully dramatic and definitely worth the trip! I can't believe we considered skipping it.
Lessons learned: Skip Queenstown. Head over to Milford Sound, skip the cruise and hike up to the Gertrude Saddle and Barrier Knob (only if you're comfortable on loose crappy, crumbly rock)
After being in the mountains for a while, having an oven was pretty exciting. We earned some freshly baked scones and cinnamon buns!
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