Way Down South

Milford Sound is amazing. Really great scenery and well worth a visit. It's a bit of a drive from Queenstown, but the views are pretty good on the way there. You also get to go through a very steep one-way tunnel that on the way back some idiot had run the red light on so they got stuck in the middle of the tunnel with a load of buses squeezing past them going the other way. The ship we were on was pretty big and full of foreign tourists so you had the commentary in about 4 languages which was annoying as you didn't need it anyway, but it was still great to be out in the fjord.
That evening we headed south to a place called Tutapere (I think) which was a bit out in the sticks but we did some really good and cheap jet-boating there. The next morning was a visit to a sheep farm. We actually didn't do a lot there but got a lift in a sheep pen on the back of a quad bike and then got to shear (a bit of) a sheep which was really fun. Then we caught the ferry to Stewart Island which is mainly a national park and there aren't many roads there. Headed for a bit of a walk to a fake chain that is supposed to link the island to the mainland - from a maori legend. Then it rained. Luckily some of the people had been fishing and caught a lot. More luckily 2 of the guys I was sharing a cottage with were chefs, so we got a really good dinner that night. The next day we drove throught the Caitlins which is a really nice area. We saw some sea-lions on the beach and then at Curio Bay there were loads of dolphins playing in teh surf and doing somersaults which was really cool but didn't come out on photos very well!
We spent the night in Dunedin where you could upgrade to a twin room with en-suite and tv for only $5 more than a dorm room which lots of us did. We did a tour of Speight's Brewery which was fun and got us some beer to taste at the end. I'd have to recommend the Pale Ale and the Dark Ale!
The next day we headed back to Queenstown and went up in the gondola to what they call the luge. It's not really like the olympic sport, the thing has wheels and a brake and goes down a concrete track not ice, but you can go pretty fast on it and I managed to get airborne a few times and also take some corners with a wheel off the ground so that was really fun. Am just chilling out today, it was nice to have a lie-in for a change and get a few things sorted out.