Today was our bus trip and full day trip out to Milford Sound, which I had really been looking forward to from some of the pictures in various travel guides. Milford Sound is a fjord (long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs created in a valley carved by glacial activity) in the south west of the south island, within Fiordland National Park. It has been judged the world's top travel destination in various international surveys and also acclaimed as New Zealand's most famous tourist destination.

This morning was a massive struggle to wake up after last night's festivities, but after a quick shower and a run to the shop for a nice cold blue Powerade, it was onto the bus for a couple of hours sleep until we arrived at Milford Sound. Some of the group had gone on Saturday and had had rather poor weather with low lying clouds, which meant their visibility wasn't ideal for the boat trip out into the sound. We were lucky and were greeted with a beautiful day outside - blue skies, warm weather and no clouds anywhere in sight.

We left Queenstown at around half 7 and headed out towards the fjord. Our first stop of the morning was at Te Anau, a small town on the eastern shore of Lake Te Anau. It was also just before this stop that I woke up, craving my blue Powerade to realise it had fallen over with the cap off and managed maybe a sip of it only... not a good start to the day trip. After breakfast at Te Anau, we continued west and stopped at a series of waterfalls and scenic view points along the way.

On arriving at Milford Sound, we boarded the boat and departed for a circular trip weaving around the mountains. It was instantly clear why it was such a highly rated tourist destination. Lunch on board was good and after that we spent the rest of the boat trip on the upper deck taking in the sights around us. Just amazing really!

The journey back to Queenstown was long, getting in a good 12 hours later from when we set up - so definitely a good day trip out. After a bit of internet planning, we decided to extend our stay in Queenstown by an extra day, and fly into Christchurch instead of the bus there. We were originally going to bus it over there, spend the night, and then fly up to Auckland - but decided to rather use that day in Queenstown and skip out on Christchurch.

Tonight was the Wales Namibia game, but wasn't all that bothered to watch it, even though they're in our group I couldn't image it to have been too much of an exciting game. So instead we headed off to Hell Pizza, a chain of pizza restaurants which originated in New Zealand. There are a couple of them in a chain of pizza restaurants which originated in New Zealand. There are a couple of them in London, but never been to one, so was definitely worth the wait. After dinner it was back to the hostel and had a fairly relaxed, chilled out night there. The last few days of Queenstown taking strain on all of us :)