Milford Sound: Ruby's amazing day trip

Ruby's Milford Sound tour

Ruby has been looking forward to today for months, and hopes for a beautiful day out in the amazing surroundings of Milford Sound.

When she gets up, she uses her phone to check the weather for the day. No rain, but being winter, the top temperature is only going to reach 11! Fortunately, Ruby’s research means she’s prepared, and she puts on thick socks and a puffy jacket.

Using the hotel Wi-Fi

Ruby is staying in a hotel in Queenstown the night before her Milford Sound trip. She knows the day trip is going to be a long one - 12.5 hours in total!

So, she uses the hotel’s free Wi-Fi to download some podcasts onto her phone using the ABC Listen app. She keeps her phone plugged in to its charger while she’s doing this, to make sure she has a full battery for the long day trip.

You can learn more about downloading podcasts in the Listening to podcasts videos for iPhone and Android mobile phones.

Ruby's day on Milford Sound

During the boat tour, Ruby takes lots of photos of Milford Sound using the excellent camera in her phone.

When she was out walking in Queenstown, she could use her mobile’s international roaming data to send photos to her family as she took them.

However, there’s no mobile reception in Milford Sound so she will have to wait until she gets back to the hotel to share these amazing pictures with friends and family.

Mobile phone battery use

Ruby keeps an eye on her mobile’s battery level. Taking photos and video uses quite a bit of battery, and she wants to have enough left to listen to more podcasts on the bus trip home.

The trip back to Queenstown

After an incredible day out on Milford Sound, everyone reluctantly boards the bus for the trip back to Queenstown.

Ruby relaxes with a few more podcasts, but also has a look through the photos she took, and decides which ones she will upload to her cloud service for her friends and family to see.

Ruby uploads her photos to the cloud

After an incredible day, Ruby is about ready to pass out! But she still wants to share some of the spectacular photos she took from the boat.

Now she’s back on the free hotel Wi-Fi, she can connect to her cloud account to share some of the photos.

Ruby is careful to only share the photos with a few select friends and family members.

eSafety tip

If you share your photos publicly on social media while you’re away, people will probably work out that you are not at home! For security, it’s best to share photos only with close contacts while you’re away, and with everyone only once you’ve returned home.

Ruby makes a video call

Earlier that week, Ruby had arranged with her family in Australia to make a video call from her hotel the evening of her cruise day.

To avoid using her mobile data allowance, she uses the hotel Wi-Fi and the video calling app on her phone. They chat for nearly half an hour, because video calls over Wi-Fi don’t cost any extra.

To learn more about video calling, check out the Connecting to others topic.

A well-earned rest

Before bed, Ruby uses her mobile phone’s internet browser to visit https://smartraveller.gov.au to see if there are any new travel advisories she should know. There aren’t any updates or current alerts, so she can sleep soundly.

To get to sleep, Ruby reads an e-book on her phone using an e-reader app, and finally quickly checks a couple of Australian news websites to keep up to date with what’s happening at home.

Ruby sets her alarm

Finally, Ruby sets her phone’s alarm for 8:00am. She doesn’t want to oversleep, because even though today was a big day, tomorrow is promising to be even bigger - her first bungy jump.

Well done!

You’ve now completed the Milford Sound: Ruby’s amazing day trip activity.

Next up, if you have registered and are logged into the Be Connected website, you'll now be able to take a short quiz to finish the course. If you're not registered, you are now at the end of the Travelling overseas course.