This week’s #BlogGreatness theme is Beautiful. I thought it was a great opportunity to continue my Queenstown holiday travel series by posting the most beautiful place I have been to in New Zealand.

Milford Sound is breathtakingly beautiful and we had a once in a lifetime experience going there by choosing to fly rather than drive from Queenstown.

To know about our epic adventure, see below.

I’ll have to start from the beginning which is getting to Milford Sound. I think there are three ways to get there from Queenstown: driving if you have your own car or have rented one, a bus/coach tour or by flying there. Driving to Milford Sound from QT is around 4-5hours one way and the coach tours took around 12 hours in total which means a good chunk of our day will be spent travelling. We didn’t want to waste a whole day so our best option was to fly there. It was an expensive option but Bookme made it cheaper.

We decided to take the Milford Sound Fly-Cruise-Fly through Air Wakatipu which included getting picked up and dropped off to/from our hotel, flight to Milford Sound, the boat cruise and the flight back. It was a pretty sweet deal in the end which took just around 4 hours.

This was our flight path sent to me by our lovely pilot Gareth after the whole experience. He did a different route going there and back so we got to see more.

Our flight was scheduled around 10am. In the morning of the flight, you have to ring them to check if it is still on because it is weather-dependent. We were very lucky because we couldn’t have flown on a better day. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful clear day. When they confirmed it, we waited to get picked up from the hotel to Queenstown airport.

We got there and saw the little plane that was going to take us there. I got a bit nervous but I was also really excited. It was just the pilot, my partner and I so it was nice and private. It was quite a personal experience.

Our pilot Gareth was amazing. I sat right in front beside him and it was great seeing how everything works. Gareth was knowledgeable and made us feel at ease. The take off was nice and smooth and he warned us if if we were going to experience some shakiness.

Flying over the snow-capped mountains was stunning. Gareth mentioned that these mountains were used in Lord of the Rings and the misty mountains.

 This is Mount Alfred just after Glenorchy. What a view! It was surreal taking it all in and seeing these massive things from a different perspective.

I’m running out of adjectives because the flight was so beautiful and amazing. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing the whole time. New Zealand is such a beautiful country and I feel so lucky that I live here.

And then we reached Milford Sound. He did a loop to prepare for landing.

 We landed safe and sound and Gareth took a photo of us and guided us to the terminal for our boat cruise. We took this Queenstown holiday for our anniversary but this day was our actual anniversary day so we couldn’t have spent it better.

We waited a few minutes then we boarded the JUCY cruise. This was included in the deal. I think the cruise was a little less than 2 hours. We mainly stayed at the top deck to have the full view but it was really cold and windy. The cruise was quite relaxing as you get the time to immerse yourself with the view. I was in awe of how big and tall the mountains were. Flying over them was a completely different scale.

We also saw some seals just chilling over a rock. They were cute.

After the cruise, we went back to the plane for our journey back to Queenstown. Here’s another view of Mitre Peak. It’s a majestic looking mountain.

On the way back, I sat at the back. Gareth made me choose which way to go too. He said I made a good choice because we’d experience less turbulence and it was more scenic.

We saw more snowy mountains.

I actually felt sick on the flight back. Thankfully I didn’t spew (sorry if that’s TMI) but I recommend not eating anything. I made a mistake of eating during the boat cruise and I felt it on the way back. My ears hurt a lot more too. I’m not sure if it made a difference sitting in front of the small plane or at the back but I felt worse going back and I was clutching on to a paper bag just in case.

I didn’t take too many photos on the way back because of how I was feeling but I was still able to enjoy the view.

Thankfully we arrived back to Queenstown safely. I think because it was a smaller plane the take off and landing are much better or smoother.

As I said before, this was a once in a lifetime experience. The whole thing was expensive than driving or taking the coach but it was well worth it. We probably won’t do this specific one again but I’d love to experience the same type over Doubtful Sound or The Remarkables. There are helicopter tours too for other places which are cheaper.

This 4-hour journey was mind-blowing and we didn’t waste a whole day. We were able to go back to our hotel to have a late lunch then headed off to Onsen Hot Pools to end the day. It was such a beautiful thing to experience and it always makes me happy whenever I look back at it.

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If you plan on travelling to Queenstown, I highly recommend you check out Bookme. There are so many great deals there. A coworker told me about it.

I hope you enjoyed this post. It was great reminiscing our holiday. It makes me want to go back so badly though to see this beautiful place in NZ again.

Let me know where is the most beautiful place you’ve ever been to. I would love to know!

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