Sorry for the Group Email

Queenstown was the first town we came to in New Zealand that didn’t appear to have any local businesses that weren’t for tourists. It was also the first place in New Zealand we saw a Starbucks.

Most of the things you can do in Queenstown involve pain, panic or altitude. Sometimes they involve all three. There are things you can throw yourself out of, things you can throw yourself off of, and things you can swing from. We’d already thrown ourselves from an aircraft, of course, and the idea of strapping an elasticated cord to my ankles and then spraying terror-vomit from several hundred feet just didn’t appeal.

The good thing about Queenstown is that you can get out, and you don’t need to drive very far to be somewhere completely different. This isn’t to say that Queenstown isn’t nice, by the way. Everyone there was on holiday and compared to other holiday towns – Bournemouth, say – it’s a beautiful place to spend a day.

We booked a flight to Milford Sound, which by most accounts is one of the most beautiful places on Earth, and left.

From Queenstown we headed north along the shore of Lake Wakatipu. Lake shore drives are one thing that New Zealand does impressively: it was all sweeping curves and phenomenal views of light blue water bordered by immense mountains.

We spent the night in Glenorchy, which is home to fewer than two hundred people. As a result there’s not much there: we counted three restaurants and one general store, which doubled as the campsite  reception.

Oh, and we nearly froze to death. The thing about camping in the Alps – any Alps, as far as I’m aware, but New Zealand’s Alps specifically – is that all that snow is pretty cold. We were as prepared as we could be, I suppose: we were wearing layers of thermal underwear, t-shirts, sweaters, and hats, and we still woke up at five in the morning with the uncomfortable sensation of being very, very chilly.

Very, very, very chilly, in fact.

The next morning, once we’d massaged life back into our extremities, we phoned our Queenstown pilot and discovered, alas, that our scenic flight wouldn’t be happening that day.

“Sorry,” the voice crackled down the phone. “We’ve got pretty good weather in Queenstown, but at Milford Sound it’s snowing.”

Milford Sound is supposedly one of the most spectacular natural sights on the planet: a massive fiord that opens out into the Tasman Sea, enclosed by white mountains and fed by enormous waterfalls. Not wanting to miss it, we booked to fly the next day, and that day we drove around.

New Zealand really is splendid. We were served in a grocery store by a woman who not only wondered who we were and where we were going, but offered us advice on where we should go that afternoon. In the event we opted for Te Anau , which is a small, touristy town about as near to Milford Sound as you can get without embarking on the full six hour drive it takes to get there.

The next day the weather was clear, and we drove back to Queenstown, and thence to the airport.

Queenstown airport, it turns out, sees about a dozen jets per day from around New Zealand and Australia, but mostly it’s the home to a crowd of small, eight-seater propeller planes which buzz between Queenstown and Milford Sound a few times each day.

From the outside, a small plane looks like pretty cosy. Promising, you could say. A nice place where you’ll be cosseted against the wind and elements, all the while having a guaranteed window seat . The reality, of course, is different. Small aircraft are surprisingly tight inside: not only will you be rubbing elbows with the person next to you, you’ll be rubbing your knees against the seat in front. They’re surprisingly loud: once the engine’s going the best you can hope for in terms of communication, unless you’ve got a microphone, is frantic, hopeless hand gestures.

You also feel every ripple and bump in the air. A lurch in a light aircraft is like going over an invisible sleeping policeman in a Morris Minor.

But on a flight to Milford Sound you won’t care too much, because the view from the window is as captivating as they come. We flew over Glenorchy, where we’d spent our chilly, quiet night two days before. We crossed mountain ranges with untouched snowy peaks, and valleys that dipped thousands of feet below us, ending in rivers: thin silver threads that had once spawned entire towns once gold was found in them. It was inexpressibly, extraordinarily awesome.

We thumped onto the runway in Milford Sound and spent the next two hours on a sightseeing boat, where we once again remarked at the commendable way New Zealanders resist attaching stunning price tags to food in tourist traps. Anyone who’s eaten a sandwich at London Zoo will know what I mean.

The Sound, incidentally, is extraordinary: a perfectly still harbour surrounded by mountains and plunging waterfalls. Not for the first time it was all but impossible to photograph. You’ll just have to buy some tickets, I’m afraid.

We completed our lap of the Sound and returned to the airport and flew back to Queenstown. This time it was even better. We saw Sutherland Falls, which falls half a kilometre from a lake which against the glaring white of the mountains appeared oily black. The plane jumped and dipped as we crossed each set of peaks: nothing turns your knuckles white like turbulence in an aircraft that feels a lot like a Mini.

Dave recommends a flight to Milford Sound. Only an idiot wouldn’t. Also, I’ve added a superdooper widget that’ll email you if someone posts a comment to this story after yours. I normally reply to comments left here, so why not keep track? I promise not to send you penis enlargement spam or anything.