Milford Sound

We rested on Monday. Caught up on emails and downloaded pictures, did some laundry and other housekeeping kinds of things. After lunch we took a short bike ride along the Clutha River which is just a stone’s throw from David and Pia’s house. AND we (mostly I) stressed over the weather report for Milford Sound--high winds and rain! Of course, MS receives rain 200 days a year so…….

Tuesday morning we headed out early to make the 3.5 hour drive south from Wanaka to Te Anua where we caught a bus for our trip to Milford Sound. MS is the most northern and most accessible of fourteen fiords in the area of NZ that is called Fiordland. Fiordland National Park is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Area. The road from Te Anau to MS is the only main road in the entire area and you can only live in MS if you are actively working in MS. We caught our bus tour bound for Milford Sound.

Incredibly, we had a gloriously sunny day! The 2.5 hour bus ride from TA to MS was a progression from grasslands, lakes, and foothills into majestic mountains. We stopped at the lovely, flat, grass covered Eglinton Valley with views to the mountains, saw some small but enchanting “mirror” lakes, a cascading waterfall with rocks worn into sculpted shapes and holes, and traveled almost a mile via the Homer Tunnel through solid granite mountain. The tunnel was begun in the 30’s but wasn’t opened until 1954. All the way we proceeded through beautiful, ancient beech tree forests. The bus had windows on the sides of the roof so we could look up at the mountain tops as we went. We were relieved that we weren’t driving. The road was very narrow! Our driver not only drove, he also gave a running commentary, historical and ecological, even while driving the aptly named “cardiac corners”. Pulling into MS we looked out on the blue, sun sparkled water and the famous view of the awe inspiring Mitre Peak (named by the English because they thought it looked like a bishop‘s hat although the Maori apparently thought it more closely resembled… manhood). We checked in and queued up with the 60 odd other passengers to board our overnight boat, the Milford Mariner.

Eglinton Valley

Milford Sound we learned is actually not a sound but a fiord which basically means that it was carved out by glaciers (pronounced “glassy-urs” around here). The water comes to the very edge of the mountains because the carved out area continues hundreds of meters below the water line. We left port and headed out into the sound. The wind was incredibly strong although the water was only mildly wavy. To move around the deck we clung from railing to railing. We discovered later that the wind was gusting up to 60 mph! Due to the high winds, the boat didn’t go all the way out of the sound to the Tasman Sea but instead anchored in a smaller cove. Passengers were invited to go out in groups on little motor tender boats or go kayaking. We choose to kayak and found it exhilarating! There were only three other couples (all a good deal younger than we) who chose to kayak. Our guide explained to us that the mountains are of hard granite and that there is no topsoil. She took us in close to an area where wild winds had actually “lifted” a portion of trees, bushes, moss away from the rock wall. It was literally hanging in mid air and still green and seemingly growing.  I have mentioned to a few of you the possibility of “voracious” sandflies at Milford Sound. When we were kayaking around the cove, we discovered that close to shore the sandflies were indeed biting.  As we paddled farther from shore, we had relief. We are surmising that the fierce winds we experienced saved us.  We were back to the boat in time for dinner and the evening’s entertainment, a lively slide show of Milford Sound.

check out the wind!

We woke to gray clouds out the porthole, dressed, and headed up from our below decks cabin for 7AM breakfast. While we were still eating, the boat began to move out towards the Tasman Sea. The wind was slightly abated from the previous day but was still strong and the swells out on the sea were significant. The boat retreated back to the sound. We saw seals, a few rare Fiordland crested penguins from afar, and crept up to within a few feet of the base of the 480 ft. high Stirling Falls. The mountains surrounding the sound are overwhelming whether in sunshine or in clouds. They are so massive and rugged and stark. None of our pictures seem to do the place justice. I’ve read that words fail poets when describing Milford Sound…and I’m no poet.

Mitre Peak

 
 
 
 
 
 the cove we kayaked and anchored in overnight