Sound Advice

So here we are getting off the coach to go and have a look at Mirror lakes.





sorry wrong photo but they just look so similar. Excuse the crass visual cliche but we were almost literally herded down to Milford Sound.
"The lakes are down there. I'll drive down the other end of the boardwalk; be back on the coach in five minutes."
"We'll stop here for a couple of minutes if you want to take some photos"
"The chasm is about a twenty minute return walk but we need to be going in about 15 so you'll need to be quick"
The irony is you go to these places for the tranquility, isolation, peace and relaxation. Everything that a guided coach tour does not permit, especially as we were in Convoy with about four other coaches on precisely the same time schedule, like some inter tour company race



Well having raced back from the chasm (water gushing over rocks type thing) here we were standing, sweating outside our (un) real journeys coach. The fact that they pride themselves on their "bullet" shaped chassis should have given us a clue as to what was coming.




So our advice to any would be traveller is if you are reach enough fly there. If you have a more relaxed time schedule stay an evening in Te anau which is halfway there. If you have the inclination you could take on the ten hour round trip to Queenstown and back yourself. It is a long long day and Tina and I thought that in our own car we would have been driving off the edge of a cliff by about seven in the evening but on reflection it might have been a worthwhile risk.