Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Milford Sound and Leaving New Zealand

Thursday 31 January 2013 - Tasman Sea

Just an update as we head west from New Zealand to Tasmania, Australia.

We continued our glorious close up view of the west coast of the South Island of New Zealand yesterday after the morning visit to the unbelievably beautiful Dusky Sound. Late in the afternoon our socks were equally knocked off by an extremely rare sunny visit to Milford Sound, the most famous and arguably most beautiful fjord in New Zealand. There are thousand foot high waterfalls and all sorts of wildlife surrounded by share vertical rock walls and with 10,000 foot high snow covered mountains in the distance. You can visit Milford Sound 50 times and never see it in other than fog and mist. That is to say, not really see it at all. I've been there twice before and while I found it beautiful, it certainly wasn't sunny and clear on those previous visits. Yesterday was the gem. No need to go back, I guess, but I hope we do!

We left New Zealand after dropping the fjoyd pilot off and picking up a bunch of guests who had booked an overnight land arrangement from the previous stop in Dunedin. We watched their excursion boat tie up alongside Silver Whisper in 40 knot wind and hoped some of their money would blow up to where we were watching. We then sailed out due west as we passed a 500 foot waterfall which had its colored lights turned on apparently to see us off.

After heading back out to sea, I was able to discuss the (very few) shortcomings of Silver Whisper with the Hotel Director who suggested I take up any complaints with the Chairman of Silversea Cruises. Fortunately, I found the big boss working near our suite. He was most sympathethic to my requests and said he would consider my advice.

More after our visit to Hobart in a couple of days.

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