Milford Sound is probably the number one tourist attraction in the South Island. It's found in the Fjordlands – an enormous national park full of mountains, lakes (Sarah: 'New Zealand. It's all just mountains and lakes really, isn't it?') and fjords, which we learned are flooded valleys that have been carved out by glaciers. To get there from Queenstown is a 5 hour drive, and as we wanted to be there first thing in the morning for better views and less crowds, we decided to stop halfway in quiet lakeside Te Anau, which sits at the border between the rolling arable Southlands and the more aggressive Fjordlands.

After a picnic lunch parked in our van by lake Te Anau we went for a walk along the shore, staring out over the water at the forbidding mountains we were going to be driving through the next day. I tried to teach Sarah how to skim stones but she somehow managed to throw a rock at herself (from her left hand, into her upper right arm. Unbelievable) so to avoid any further Queenstown-esque injuries I suggested we maybe give the skimming a rest and head back.

The next morning we woke up early and were on the road to Milford Sound by 6.30. I was a little edgy about the drive as the road through the Fjordlands can be treacherous, and had been shut the previous week due to snow. We had snowchains in the boot, but I wasn't too keen to try them out. We were lucky: One valley still had a good dusting of snow on the road, but the rest were fine. Despite piloting what is essentially a large fibreglass box on wheels, the drive was fantastic. We entered the national park as the sun was rising, so we got to watch the mist that filled the valleys burn away to reveal snow-capped mountains and dense forest. We reached the Sound 5 minutes before our cruise left and were soon chugging out from the harbour with pockets full of Cookie Monster cookies for the trip.
Milford Sound was discovered by a Welshman called John Grono, who landed there to shelter from a storm. He named the place Milford as he thought it looked a lot like his home town of Milford Haven. I've been to Milford Haven. I reckon he must have been at sea for a bit too long. John was also mistaken in calling Milford a Sound. Milford is actually a fjord – a flooded valley carved by glaciers, as opposed to a Sound which is carved by rivers. Milford Fjord is pretty hard to say though, so they left the name alone.

Whatever it's called, it was actually carved out by no less than 6 different glaciers of different sizes, which resulted in several 'hanging valleys' - smaller shallower valleys that join onto the larger deeper ones, emptying their rivers down into the Sound in dramatic waterfalls. So that we could experience these waterfall in all their glory, our boat captain steered us right in under one of them. We managed to stand out on the foredeck for about 10 seconds before being totally drenched. Woke us up a bit after our early start anyway.

The whole cruise was incredible, but our favourite part was when a pod of bottle-nosed dolphins playing in the bay came over to investigate our boat, and then hung around us for twenty minutes, surfing the water that our boat's prow pushed out in front of it. They were clearly having a great time – jumping out of the water, spinning onto their backs and swooping around each other. The whole boat was crowded onto the bow, leaning over the rails to watch them.