After our brief walk to Lake Maria we made our way back to the car, hoping we could make it back just as the sun set behind the mountains. As the last of the daylight faded away we stepped out onto the groomed section of the track and we were now confident that we would make it back to the car safely. Arriving at the car we made some more sandwiches and prepared to spend the night in our car. When our alarms went off at 9 we quickly started the engine on our frost covered car. The temperature outside had gotten significantly colder, but we had put on many layers and bundled up in blankets so we were quite warm. We made our way to Deepwater Basin where we would begin our kayaking journey within the Milford Sound. The trip we booked would take about 4 hours and we were extremely excited to get out on the water. The skies were still relatively clear of fog which allowed us to have good sight lines across the water, but the weather that day was slightly worse as it began to rain as soon as we arrived. Luckily it was only light showers and they were pretty infrequent during the duration of our trip.
When we arrived at the meeting point we were greeted by our two guides, who quickly briefed us on safety information and got us situated into our gear. This company provided us with everything we could possibly need, but the gear came at the cost of making us look ridiculous. Finally, we had all our gear situated and we waddled down to the boat ramp where we were able to board our 2 person kayaks. One in the water we split our group into 2 groups. After a brief introduction we learned that our guide was from Iowa and 2 of the girls in our group were from Pennsylvania. As our group began to move on the first stop of the day was at the waterfall that is very close to the visitor center. From there we made our way along the edge of the sound, hugging the rock wall and looking out at the beautiful fiord. As we snaked our way along the edge of the fiord we were greeted by a pair of seals relaxing on one of the rock outcrops right next to us. The seals seemed to pay no mind to us and were completely uninterested. Disappointed that we got no action out of the local wildlife we began to cross the channel with our group and once we reached the other side we were going to begin to head back. As we started crossing I sound see water splashing out of the corner of my eye and was trying to find out what it was. Next thing I knew the girl next to me yelled "dolphins" and everyone in the group turned their kayaks towards the area and began quickly paddling. Our guide made sure that we continued crossing the channel while we went towards the dolphins and once we reached them the pod began to follow us across the channel, excitedly jumping and swimming around our group. The dolphins then preceded to follow us all the way back to Deepwater Basin, which was an incredible opportunity to get a close up view of New Zealand wildlife. This beautiful moment made me forget all about the 4 hour drive that awaited me after our kayaking.
I'm unsure if the dolphin video works on this page, but you can find the video on my facebook page.
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