This was probably my favorite activity of our trip. It was certainly the most expensive. As I mentioned on a previous post, I decided not to drive to Milford Sound and was able to book this tour the day before. It included a flight from Wanaka to Milford Sound, a cruise on Milford Sound and a flight back to Wanaka on a different route. The tour ran from 9am until around 1:00pm.

The cost was NZ$749 per person which is around US$425. The cruise alone costs around US$100 per person and I expect it would have cost me another US$100+ in gas to get there and back. In the end, I thought we got our money’s worth with this tour.

We had a bit of a hiccup when I called Southern Alps Air as requested at 8am to confirm the flight was going ahead. They said one of their aircraft had a maintenance issue and asked if we would be willing to switch to the 2pm tour. If we were staying in Wanaka for that night, I might have agreed to that, but I said no because we were going to Queenstown after the tour and I did not want to arrive that late.

Thankfully, when I called back 15 minutes later as requested, they had moved someone else to the later flight and could accommodate us as scheduled. We headed over to Wanaka airport and arrived around 8:45.

We had a full plane of seven passengers and a pilot. We walked out on to the taxiway and boarded our plane. Everyone had a window seat and the one solo traveler got the benefit of the co-pilot seat as well. Legroom was tight but manageable. The pilot did a quick safety briefing and we were off to Milford Sound.

The route to Milford Sound flew over Mt Aspiring & Fiordland National Parks. We had some amazing views of the mountains, glaciers, rivers and towns.

As we approached Milford Sound, we flew out to sea and back down the entire length of Milford Sound into the airport.

After we landed, we were led out of the tiny airport and to a waiting bus that drove us the short distance to the marina. Our pilot handed us our tickets for the cruise, which was on Southern Discoveries, one of several boat companies that run the Milford Sound cruises every day.

We boarded the boat around 10:15 and fought off the hordes of sand flies that were buzzing around. Despite wearing long sleeves, long pants and a hat, I still got a few bites on my wrist and hand. My wife escaped unscathed.

We set off down Milford Sound at 10:30. The boat wasn’t full but it quite busy with several different tour groups who weren’t always courteous when they were posing for pictures or running to catch the sight of a waterfall.

Because the weather had been dry for several days, we only saw three or four waterfalls. Sometimes in rainy weather, you can see dozens. However, if the weather had been gloomy and rainy, our flight probably would have been canceled.

We went down the length of the Sound and turned around and went back. It took about 90 minutes. Here are some of the best pictures I was able to get without the other passengers in them.

After we docked, we met our pilot back in the cruise terminal and he led us back to bus which dropped us at the airport. We boarded our plane back to Wanaka with the promise of a different route, this time via the Dart Valley and over the township of Glenorchy at the head of Lake Wakatipu. This location was used extensively in the Lord of the Rings movies with the mountains of the Dart/Rees Valleys forming the backdrop to Isengard. Then we flew over Queenstown’s Shotover River before turning back toward Wanaka.

We landed back in Wanaka around 1pm and said goodbye to our new friends from the tour. We continued on our way south headed to Queenstown. I’m so glad I decided to book this tour rather than drive to Milford Sound. Not only did I avoid 10 hours of driving, but I would have been disappointed with just the cruise given the lack of waterfalls running in the beautiful weather. While we may have missed some viewpoints and scenery from the ground, we more than made up for it with the scenery from the air.

Up Next: Driving from Wanaka to Queenstown via Arrowtown

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