After the ferry boat ride to the main dock we dropped our gear at the charter bus and grab our overnight clothes and made our way to the small cruise vessel Milford Wanderer that would be our home overnight on the sound. We boarded at 4 pm and headed out onto the sound washed in beautiful sunshine to soak p the views that have to be some of the most stunning in the world. Miter Peak dominates the skyline from the dock as it rises some 1675 meters directly out of the water in an impressive display of shear rock faces. Every one of the 50 odd people on board the ship was ecstatic, however the trampers were the most as we queued up to get into the scalding hot showers onboard. After 4 days of sweaty tramping it was unbelievably wonderful standing in the hot water scrubbing your self clean. We went up onto the main deck into the lounge and had the most wonderful meal that contained none of the freeze-dried fare that we had over the last few days. The beer and wine flowed freely as we watched the Sound drift by and sailed out onto the Tasman Sea for an hour or so before returning to our safe anchorage in the sound for our overnight stay. The accommodations on board the Wanderer are a little cramped with 4 people to a bunk bed stateroom and the sounds of very tired trampers quickly engulfed us all. The bunks are a little cramped as my head and feet touched opposite ends. It was not the best sleep I had on the trip and Mary echoed my sentiments. We rose at about 6:15 and had another exquisite hot shower before going upstairs to have an enormous breakfast. We pulled anchor and cruised down to the sea once again before turning toward the harbour some 20 kms towards the mountains. The sun was streaming down on us but had yet to fully engulf all the sound, as the walls are so steep that the sun does not reach all the sections until about 9:00 am. The skipper took us close to the vertical rock walls that towered over us in one place by 900 meters while the depth of the Sound was 392 meters under us. This occurred when we were actually less than 2 meters from the rock face and the bow of the boat was actually in a waterfall, totally awesome! We cruised slowly into Freshwater Basin and realized that this pivotal portion of our trip was over and climbed aboard the bus for Te Anau 1:30 down the road. About 20 minutes from our departure we entered the Homer tunnel that is one lane wide and 900 meters long. The traffic is controlled by lights and at the height of the tourist season you can wait for up to 25 minutes for the lights to change. On a busy day Milford will receive up to 175 full sized tourist busses. We arrived in Te Anau about 12:15 and we said our goodbyes to our new tramping friends and shouldered our backpacks for one last time to walk the kilometer or so back to the motel where we had left our rental car while we were away hiking. We picked up the car and checked in and then quickly went to the local supermarket to purchase two steaks, salad and a nice bottle of wine for dinner as the motel had an outdoor BBQ that guests were able to use. We had a wonderful meal and tumbled into bed early to finally get good nights sleep with none snoring but me.
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