Milford Sound with our new tour group

Today we joined "New Zealand Trails," a locally-based tour company to do an 8-day adventure tour. It's quite a change from Backroads, in that we have four travelers on this group with one guide, compared to 22 and 4 guides. Courtney Kerin, our guide, is a world champion whitewater kayaker, and full of energy and passion for South Island. Our fellow travelers are a mother and daughter from Wyoming, and are enjoyable travelling companions.

We began the day with a lot of driving to get from Queenstown over to Milford Sound. It is 50 miles between them as the kea bird flies, but going around the mountains takes about 4 hours -- over a large mountain pass called the Devil's Staircase, and through the mile-long Homer Tunnel. Near the top, we stopped for a view, and found a kea bird ready to make mischief with car tires and someone's sandal left on the ground. We also filled our water bottles with clean, clear water from a stream.

Arriving at the Sound (actually a fiord) we went with a nature guide on a walk on the famed Milford Track. We learned about the trees and ferns in the rainforest, and tasted the Horopito, or Peppertree, leaf -- spicy! Last year, it rained 10.5 meters at Milford Sound, and they typically have 200 rainy days in a year. We hit a dry day! We then boarded our boat for an overnight in the Sound. The sunny weather and fair temperatures allowed us to spend plenty of time on the deck and watch the green fern-covered sheer walls of the fiord.Read more