The following day was an early wake-up as Brittany’s flight was set for 9 am. We rode the train with her and ensured she made it through security before returning to the AirBnB to pack our bags. Needless to say, it was a tearful goodbye! I was so glad she could make it, as there was almost a chance she wouldn’t get a passport in time! But things always work out, as Grant always tells me.

Our flight wasn’t until 2:40 that afternoon, so we could take our time and relax with some coffee before checking out of our place. We headed to the airport and enjoyed our last cheap train ride in Sydney. It is still amazing how affordable and easy it was to use by just tapping your credit card. More places could definitely learn from them!

The flight was a little late in pushing off, so we arrived in Queenstown around 7:45 pm. After getting our rental car squared away, we headed nearby to check into the hotel. We were surprised when we walked outside as we weren’t expecting the temps to be down into the 40s. Getting into the hotel, we quickly dropped off our bags and tried to figure out a place to eat. As most businesses were closing around 9 pm or already closed, we had very few options and settled on Pizza Hut. While munching on our pizza, we figured out a rough itinerary for our time in New Zealand, as we didn’t have anything planned out for this leg of the trip besides the Milford Sound cruise Grant had booked before our flight that morning.

We grabbed some coffee and pastries for our 3.5-4 hour drive to Milford Sound the following day. Since we had flown in at night, we didn’t see the scenery around us. From the moment we started our drive in Queenstown to anywhere we drove in New Zealand, our response to the view was “Wow” everywhere we looked. People had told us the country was beautiful, but you must see it to believe it. I took so many time-lapses on the drives, but it’s hard to truly capture it (especially on our iPhone SE). Grant enjoyed being able to get his drone out and get some aerial views of the landscape, especially as the fall colors were really vibrant all over.

Once in Milford Sound, we grabbed a quick snack and coffee at the visitor’s center before heading on the cruise. We had beautiful clear skies to view the Milford Sound and even got lucky to see some bottlenose dolphins and New Zealand fur seals on tour. The skipper told us that Milford Sound receives the highest amount of rain in the country totaling about 7,000 mm/year (23 ft/year). He said it rains almost 200 days out of the year, allowing multiple waterfalls to be seen throughout the sound. We were quite lucky to see it while sunny. Near the end of the tour, he turned the boat around towards one of the giant waterfalls in the sound to dip the boat’s bow into the falls. Even though we were at the back of the boat, you could still feel the power of the falls, along with the cold shower spraying the boat. Just off the dock we also saw our first Starlink User Terminal of our entire trip (what Grant works on at SpaceX). He was really excited to see something that started in the factory he helped build in Hawthorne so many miles around the globe. We also realized on the drive to Milford Sound how popular van-life is in New Zealand. There were countless rental vans of multiple brands all around the entire country, partly because the government has an “open camping” rule that allows people to camp in most public lands around the country.

After the cruise, we headed about 1.5 hours down the road to Te Anau to grab a bite to eat and a place to sleep for the night. We had dinner at The Ranch and finally got to try the Aussie/NZ dessert of pavlova. I don’t know what I expected to taste when we tried it, but it was delicious! It was very light and fluffy and was topped with passion fruit jam. While we were at dinner, we found an available motel nearby. Or so we thought until we showed up and reception was closed. When we called the number on the door, the guy answered and told us that he had moved our reservation to a different hotel. We were so confused, but when we showed up at The Village Inn, it turned out the same management-owned them, and the room we initially booked was under maintenance. It was an American-West themed motel that reminded us of the western theme park in the movie “Nope.”

It was definitely quite the place with its American western themed design, but it was a place to lay our heads for the night, so that was all that mattered.