February 11th: Biscuit and picnic
After a hearty breakfast at Glenorchy Hotel we drove to Kinloch. An even more remote hamlet that nestles at the very top of Lake Wakatipu, across the water from Glenorchy.

We all met at the waters edge at Kinloch and tucked into a fantastic picnic that Sarah's mum had prepared. It was such a lovely day, laying by the lake, chatting to the other wedding guests and talking about the great day we had enjoyed the day before.

The biscuit was in operation again and so funny watching those that braved it clinging on as it skimmed across the water behind the boat.

We layed there all day, cool breeze wafting over us and under a clear blue sky. At about 5pm we gathered up all our stuff and left. Kinloch was peaceful once again as we had found it, with hardly anyone there. I loved it, a wonderful place. No wonder Peter Jackson choose around this Glenorchy area to shoot some of The Lord of the Rings.

About twelve of us met in Glenorchy Hotel and school dinner like, we pushed a couple of tables together and sat down for some dinner and then later hit the bar.

Six of us talking together were sad that we wouldn't have time to drive to Milford Sound. One of the other wedding guests heard us and said they had done a fly-boat-fly trip. To drive to Milford Sound takes about 5 hours from Glenorchy as you have to drive around the mountains to get there, even though it's just over the top of the mountains from Glenorchy. Our eyes lit up, Roz went off, did some research and made some calls and the six of us booked a flight, all to ourselves to take us to the Sound the next day.

February 12th: Planes, boats and Sounds
We met at the funky Glenorchy Cafe and had pancakes with bacon and eggs, dowsed in creme fraiche, lemon juice and maple syrup - outrageous. They do the best breakfasts here and huge buckets of coffee! A very cute dog sat looking all doey and saucer eyed at my bacon, so we shared it.

We found our way to Glenorchy Air and met our pilot. We took off and climbed up over the mountains. The lake side mountains look lush and green and quite inviting. These mountains are harsh, sheer and treacherous. We wove in and out of the peaks, at some points it felt as if we were only a few feet away from the sheer rock faces.

We dropped down in to Milford Sound following the water and landed, ready for our two hour boat trip.

We boarded the boat, quite large, with restaurant and loads of decks to view from. The Sounds were immense. The only clue to the scale of them was seeing another sister boat in the distance, a dot against the mountains. We saw seals, huge cascading falls that we sailed alongside, that soaked us from the fine spray.

It was a fine clear day that allowed us to see everything, snowy peaks and mountains in the distance. The weather here is so changeable - we were lucky.

Two hours passed so quickly. We docked back and found our pilot and flew back up over the mountains. He took us back a different way, still so close to the peaks.

When we landed he took some pics of the six of us and in the same airfield there were some sky divers coming into to land - so we watched them for a while. One of them skimmed, it felt, about 20 feet over our heads.

Back in Glenorchy we decided to have another lake side BBQ. Loads of the wedding party came along. Great fun.

At about 8pm Sarah took, Martin, Roz, Nicky and myself out onto Lake Wakatipu fishing. There is a definite art to standing up on a small bobbing boat, as we doe-ce-doed around each other. Roz wisely sat on the front of the boat. Martin did a bit of piloting, whilst Sarah set up Nicky and I with fishing rods.

As it became darker the water became black and murky and the mountains loomed over us. The roll of the boat became harder as more swell moved in up the lake from Queenstown about 45km down the lake. The atmosphere was really spooky and the light was amazing.

Nicky had a tug on her line and pulled in a Salmon. I had a tug to but only managed to pull in some weed!!

The swell became much larger and so we thought it was best to go back, plus it was getting quite dark. Sarah powered us back across the swell to Glenorchy, bouncing across the water, five of us clinging on in the boat. Fresh with Nicky's catch Roz spent a while sorting the fish out ready to cook. The rest of us went back to the Glenorchy Hotel bar. This was our last night in New Zealand, what a place.