Milford Sound

Milford Sound is considered one of the top tourists destinations in New Zealand. It is also one of the rainiest places in the world with an average of 180 days of rain per year and an average of over 1,200 meters per year. Not the day we went, however. As we made our way through Te Anau and onto the Milford Road, the heavy fog that smothered the road during the early morning lifted to reveal a beautiful, cloudless, sunny day. 

They suggest a drive time of 2 hours to be able to make all the nice stops and walks that are on the road--which John and I saved for the trip back as we had one of the earlier cruise times. It it is also a legal requirement during the winter once the snow comes to carry chains for your tires--luckily we didn't have to worry about that because of the lack of snow. 

On the way to Milford Sound you pass through an old tunnel, called the Homer Tunnel, dug in the 1930s. It goes directly through solid rock underneath a mountain and is rather narrow. It was really cool though, as all around you as you drove through was just solid rock.

Milford Sound itself was beautiful. It is the largest of the fiordland sounds, containing the famous and picturesque Mitre Peak, the tallest sea cliff in the world, haven risen directly from the sea floor to a height of 1,692 meters.

The sound was peppered with beautiful mountains and waterfalls. There are dolphins that live in the sound, but unfortunately we didn't see any. We did see some more fur seals lounging on the rocks. The sound also has an underwater observatory where you can view the plant and animal life beneath the surface--but it costs extra so we didn't get off there. 

As we finished the cruise and made our way back onto the Milford Road, the great weather kept up and we were able to make all the little stops on the way back to Te Anau. The first was a stop called The Chasm. It was an area where rushing water had carved away rock into interesting formations. 

Out in the parking lot there were signs posted warning tourists to not feed the Kea, the curious Alpine parrot that is known to pick apart the rubber from cars and eat tramping boots left out. As we were leaving the car park there was a group of girls who showed up behind us, They had been on our tour and took hokey pictures of themselves at the front of boat doing the Titanic pose. As the four of them got out of the car and walked across the parking lot to the start of the trail that led to The Chasm they threw a piece of bread on the ground near their car. Sure enough, a Kea flew down and landed right on one of their passenger side mirrors. We were already headed to our next stop so we didn't wait around to see how much damage it might do.

The next stop was just a beautiful little roadside view called "Pop's View" that was named after a local man nicknamed "pops" who died in an avalanche in the area back in the 80s. It was a gorgeous view, though, especially with the way the sun was shining on the valley. 

Another stop we made was a bit further down on a turnoff leading to a popular tramping track called the Hollyford. We made a short 10 minute walk to a nice rushing river/waterfall that was at the start of the track. You could walk all the way to the lake but it was 3 hours return, so we decided against it.

The last stop we made was toward the end of the road at a spot called Mirror Lakes. It's really two small ponds that reflect the mountains and hills that run alongside the Milford Road. It was a short 5 minute walk, though, and worth the stop. 

They say the road to Milford Sound is just as beautiful as the fiord itself, and indeed, the whole day was filled with beautiful sights! 

That night we stayed in a lovely backpackers about 9 km south of Te Anau called Barnyard Backpackers. The rooms were actually self-contained cabins, each with a TV and their own bathrooms. Even though we had a dorm room cabin, for the first two nights we were there we had the whole thing to ourselves, which was quite nice. All the cabins were a short walk down a hill from the main building that housed the kitchen and common room. The places was really nice, with a decent-sized, clean kitchen, two wood-burning fire places, and their was a loft upstairs with couches and a pool table. The hostel had two Woofers while we were there, serving as lodge staff, and one of the guys Jessie played a lot of pool with John and I to pass the time.

The weather for our two days in Te Anau wasn't great and so we didn't embark on any of the walks we had wanted because a heavy fog fell over the area and didn't lift for those two days. You could barely see 20 feet in front of you it was so thick. So we hung around the place, playing pool (and I started to get pretty good I must say),  watching TV, occasionally venturing out, and playing with the hostel's adorable yellow lab dog, Zack. He was such a sweet dog, especially in comparison to the Alaskan Malamute. 

One of the days we ventured out to a bird wildlife park about 10 minutes away. It was really just a bunch of different birds in cages of varying size--some cages covered a whole area, and some were really small. All of the birds were either in some sort of rehabilitation or breeding program. Not the most exciting thing, but it was good to get out and about a bit--even in the gross weather. Since we couldn't explore the area through walking, as the weather simply wouldn't lend itself to a decent walk, we headed into town the second day to catch a movie about Fiordland made by a local helicopter pilot. He spent five years capturing footage as we went out in his helicopter and then got some friends to help him edit it together and add music. The subtitle of the film was called "Shadowland." It had some really fantastic scenes of Fiordland as we gathered footage in all kinds of weather, times of day, and seasons. The movie was only half an hour, and only had music, no talking, but it was still a half-hour well spent.

View of the setting sun from our cabin in Te Anau.

Even tough we didn't get to do everything we wanted in Te Anau, that was our only bout of bad luck with the weather. Still, we were able to greatly improve our pool skills! The next day, as the weather cleared and the sun shined again, it was off to Invercargill!