{"id":5011,"date":"2023-01-04T12:55:32","date_gmt":"2023-01-04T17:55:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.herons-flight.com\/?p=5011"},"modified":"2023-01-04T12:55:32","modified_gmt":"2023-01-04T17:55:32","slug":"day-56-cruise-on-milford-sound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.herons-flight.com\/?p=5011","title":{"rendered":"Day 56, Cruise on Milford Sound"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Wednesday, December 28, 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We decided to splurge and pay $25 for parking close to the boat terminal. Glad we did as it would have been a very long walk with sandflies otherwise. Regardless it was still probably a 10 minute walk along the shore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We boarded our Southern Discoveries boat at 9:30, and the wind was calm. Wind built during the day! The spectacular Mitre Peak is about a mile high and the water is about 700 feet deep!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We stopped at the underwater discovery center in a protected cove. They built a little floating museum and it is anchored to the edge of the sound. We crossed. Gangway and walked down a spiral staircase to the circular underwater observatory. Not much to see beyond the \u201cwindow boxes\u201d growing black coral and a few curious fish.
Dinner at the Milford Lodge to celebrate Jane\u2019s 8th birthday was delicicious!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ready to board our boat with Mitre Peak in the background<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
The sound was calm in the morning as we motored along the shore.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Gorgeous day<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Milford Sound is a fjord<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Our boat could go right up to the cliff face. Really deep.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Vegetation clinging to the cliff<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Spectacular scenery<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Some clouds rolling in<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
A Norwegian cruise ship gives you an idea of how big the cliffs are rising straight out of the sea<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Milford Sound<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Beautiful<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
There would have been more waterfalls if it had been raining more<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Our boat went right up next to the waterfall.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
The observatory\/discovery center was tethered to the shore.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
The underwater observatory<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Milford Lodge dinner. I started with a duck duo, duck liver pate and a spread of chopped duck confit. Delicious!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
A great meal in New Zealand: rack of lamb!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
The birthday girl<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wednesday, December 28, 2022 We decided to splurge and pay $25 for parking close to the boat terminal. Glad we did as it would have been a very long walk with sandflies otherwise. Regardless it was still probably a 10 minute walk along the shore. We boarded our Southern Discoveries boat at 9:30, and the … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry","explorer-thumbnail-icon"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5p6Ax-1iP","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.herons-flight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.herons-flight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.herons-flight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.herons-flight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.herons-flight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5011"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.herons-flight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5055,"href":"https:\/\/www.herons-flight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5011\/revisions\/5055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.herons-flight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.herons-flight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.herons-flight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}