We woke from a cold night in the car, and made our way back to Milford to begin our kayaking trip. When we arrived, we began talking with a few of the people who were in our group for the day. There were a surprising amount of Americans and even our guide was a veteran from Iowa.
At the meeting point, we were given a ton of extremely warm and waterproof clothing that also happened to be neon colored stripes. We looked ridiculous, but the clothing was perfect for the weather. It was very cloudy and foggy, and it was sprinkling rain on and off. However, the water was still very calm, and it was quite easy to paddle in. The trip took about four hours and took us all around Milford Sound. As you can probably guess, it was absolutely stunning. We got even closer to the waterfall we saw the day before, and made our way farther out by paddling along the racks of the fiords. The fiords were so steep that the guide warned about treevalanches, which apparently occurred more than actual avalanches.
In my opinion, the most incredible thing I saw was the way the fog surrounded parts of the fiords. It reminded me of those scooby doo episodes where the villain would cruise into shore on a ghost ship from a fog covered sea.
After about 2 and a half hours, we began to turn around to start the trip back. In order to get back, we had to cross over from one side of the sound to another. On our way across, we were greeted by a group of about 15 dolphins. We saw them from a distance, which was cool, but our guide said that if we just keep paddling, they would probably swim with us. Luckily for us, that’s exactly what they did. They surrounded us and began weaving between our kayaks, all the while taking huge leaps out of the water. It was like playing with a bunch of energetic dogs. We made the trip back to the starting point with the group of dolphins and said our goodbyes. When we finished changing, we climbed back in the car and were back on the road to Queenstown where we would stay our final night in the hostel.
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