Milford Sound

sunrise over the Remarkables

 Just kidding, Milford isn't really a Sound--it's a Fiord.  Anyway, super awesome fun-time adventures.  So this was the only "trip splurge" that I took part in on my vacation. I joined a tour of Milford with the group called Real Journeys.  It included transport from Queenstown to Milford Sound, then a 3 hour cruise of Milford, and transport back to Queenstown.  I was really glad for the relaxing bus ride that I could just spend staring out the windows/ceiling (the ceiling of the bus was window too!) taking in the spectacular scenery.  You've already heard my opinions about bus rides in New Zealand--I love them--but this ride was extra special. 
There isn't a direct road from Queenstown to Milford, even though they aren't that far apart as the crow flies.  Instead you have to take this really roundabout route through the Remarkable Mountain range, part of the Southern Alps, and through Fiordland National Park.   Essentially, you get a slightly condensed tour of this intensely beautiful, giant landscape of endless mountains and forests, and...it's just really hard to describe!  On the way there we passed by the second and third largest lakes in New Zealand (first and second in the South Island): Te Anau and Wakatipu.  Wakatipu is the lake that Queenstown sits on. Anyway, so you get to see these amazing lakes, and then mountains! Oh the Mountains!  And the whole time our bus driver, Brownie, is telling us all about the area and these great stories.  He was this little old Maori man, and he'd just launch into old Maori legends, including some made up Maori dialogue.  He told one about why the lake by Queenstown is called Wakatipu.  I won't go into crazy detail, but basically there was a giant that used to live in the valley, which was covered in a glacier, and he used to go to the Maori villages to listen to the women sing.  One day he decided he wanted one of them for a wife, so he stole the chief's daughter and carried her off to his home.  The Maori warriors went to rescue her, and when they found the giant asleep they started to build a fire around him.  By the time the giant woke up, he was on fire!  In trying to put the fire out he ran to the glacier and fell over onto it, and it melted covering him and turning the Valley into a lake.  So Wakatipu, according to our driver, means the valley of the sleeping giant.  It also explains a strange anomaly that lake possesses: it has a kind of tide where ever 20 minutes the level of the lake raises/falls 4cm.  According to the legend, this is the giant's heartbeat below the lake.  Cool story, isn't it?

 The drive through the Southern Alps/Fiordland National Park is about 6 hours, so he told us quite a few stories, and we had a few stops along the way. 
The first one was literally just pulling over on the side of the road in a valley.  You got to get out of the bus for about 10 minutes and wander into the grass, and it was just mountains all around you.

You kind of get an idea of the scale with all the people out in the valley--but it really is just staggering.  You look and the it's just massive.  The crazy thing is that they're really not that big in comparison to the Alps, most of which have peaks over 3000m, whereas the Southern Alps top out at 2500m ish.  It doesn't really seem to mater in any case, they're still mountains and they still look gigantic when compared to anything else!

Something I noticed in the South Island that I really can't account for, is that either the whole island is at a higher elevation than I think, or all of the clouds just form really low, because they always seem to be brushing the tips of the mountains, or lakes.  It makes for really cool pictures, and it was one of my favorite things to see, but no one seemed able to explain why the clouds were so low in the sky.  I wasn't complaining though!  At our next stop along the way, we stopped at a kind of reflection pond.  It was similar to the one I took a picture of in Franz Josef, but this one reflected the mountains around it.  It was also a bit different because it wasn't as sheltered so the wind disrupted the water a little bit.  You had to wait for it to calm to snap a picture.  The weather, just like Wisconsin, changes quickly here. In fact, the changes here might be even more dramatic because of the mountains.  We had to pass through a tunnel on the way to Milford and it was surreal how on one side of the mountains it was sunny and clear, and then the other side of the tunnel it was overcast, and damp

Almost forgot about this-- our last stop before we went through the Homer Tunnel (the tunnel through the Southern Alps) was at a freshwater stream.  Supposedly it's some of the purest water in the world because it's so high up in the mountains and is fed by a natural spring fed lake (Lake Fergus).  It's tested everyday by the coach drivers to make sure it's safe to drink.  It was really cold, but tasted delicious.

There aren't many native animals in New Zealand, and most of the ones that are native are birds, and very rare to see. As we were waiting to pass through the tunnel though, I did get to glimpse one of the only alpine parrots on earth though; it's called a Kea and they're only found in New Zealand.  Supposedly they're one of the smartest parrots.  Our driver was telling us how they usually jump onto the buses and cars are ride on them through the tunnel.  There was only one sitting on the tunnel when we went through, and it seemed like he was a-okay where he was at that day.

 And this was the other side of the tunnel!  I couldn't tell if it was steam or cloud on the mountains, but it was beautiful.  The whole rest of the drive was a lot like this--cloud wisps off the rocks, and the most beautiful green colors you can imagine.  There's not much else to say about the drive other than the legend about the Maori name for Milford: Piopiotahi.  It means "the land of one thrush" in reference to a legend that when a great chief came down to Milford, and approached the local village there, there was no one there to greet him except one single thrush.


And now on to Milford!  So we left Queenstown around 7:30 and got to the boat launch in Milford sometime after 1pm.  Our cruise of the sound went for about 3 hours and all I can say is wow.  There's barely words to describe how...giant it is.  It's like, imagine that you're building a sand castle on the beach by dripping sand down into peaks, it gets to a point that an ant walks between them and you hardly notice because the sand mountains are so big.  That's what I felt like.  Everywhere you looked you were just taken aback by how huge it was.  It was so hard to comprehend that it was really that huge. 

Every once in a while I'd catch a view of one of the other boats next to one of the cliffs, and go.  Right.  That boat is about the same size as ours.  This place is HUGE.  It looks so green too, but there's not a whole lot of trees.  All along the Fiord there's big scars from where the trees just fell off into the water because there's not any dirt holding them on, it's just lichens growing on the rock that act as the dirt would act in a normal forest.

The colors were spectacular too.  Sometimes the light would change and everything just looked like a giant black mass against the clouds, and others it was like a great green monster was rearing up out of the gloom.  And the waterfalls!  There were SO MANY WATERFALLS!  Not all of them were permanent, but they were gorgeous.  There are only four permanent waterfalls in Milford, ones that are stream fed instead of being caused by rainfall.  Everywhere you looked you could see another one, and another one.  They were just too beautiful. 

I need more adjectives to describe just how incredible the views were. Our guides told us that we came on a good day, the sea was fairly calm, and there was no rain, even if there was tons of cloud cover. She said that almost 290 days of the year it rains there, so we were pretty lucky.

The cruise through the Fiord went through the whole Fiord and then out to the ocean, so here's the Pacific.  I never get sick of the  ocean, it's wonderful.  Part of the cool thing about Milford is that it took forever for people to discover.  It took so long because when you approach Milford from the ocean, the entrance is almost invisible.  Captain Cook didn't go and explore it for this reason; he just thought it was a shallow beach.  It looks really interesting though.

So, I spent most of my time on the boat up at the front, or 'prow'.  It was a great view, and a good spot no get pictures.  It wasn't the warmest day out, though, and there were a couple of little old people, particularly this little old Indian lady who thought I was going to get hypothermia.  I just kindly told them that I was from Wisconsin and this was like a pleasant spring day.  That being said, my hands did get a little chilled and I had to break out my hat and gloves, but I was wearing khakis a long sleeve shirt and a sweatshirt.  The only bad part about it was that when we got up close to the waterfalls a lot of the spray would hit me in the face and I got a little damp.  This particular waterfall, though, has a legend that goes along with it that if the spray touches you you'll wake up looking 10 years younger.  I don't think I need it in my case though!

We got really close to this waterfall, if you scroll up back to the picture of the waterfall in a low dip, that's the one I'm standing in front of.  It may not look that large in the pictures, and it is the smallest permanent one in Milford, but it's 400m tall!  That might give you a little more of an idea of how massive everything is there.

This was a really cool thing that our tour guide had us do.  She told everyone to stand with you back to the port side (left) rails of the ship.  She then told us to hold on to the rail, lean back and look up.  It was a little crazy because you were looking up a sheer rock face to the very top.  It just loomed over you and kept going up and up and up.  It had a particular name, but I have since spaced out on it.  Anyway, it was a very strange feeling to look up this wall of rock, semi-upside down.  I had to take a picture like that so that's what you see on the right.

After taking a picture upside down it was then necessary to take a picture looking up normally, so you get the kind of idea of this cliff face.  It's still not quite the same though, because when you leaned back then you get a really good feel for how the top of the cliff looms over the water just slightly, so it's like it's sitting over you.  There's also all the lichens growing on the rock to give it that kind of greeny look.

And then the hi-light of Milford!  Seals!  Water mammals are really the only mammals native to New Zealand.  The only land mammals there are either super endangered bats or species that have been introduced, so I was super stoked to see some wildlife.  Landscapes are all good and beautiful, and the birds are pretty cool, but seeing some seals lounging around on the rocks, even crawling up to a better spot was way too exciting!  It was even better when we went on a bit further and saw some of them floating in the water: much too exciting!

The pictures turned out a little blurry because I had to use the super zoom on my camera, the guides didn't want to get to close to them in case we scared them off.












Thus ended my Milford Sound excursion, in all of its beauty and wonder.  We drove back thte way we'd come, but didn't stop anywhere along the way as the sun was beginning to set.  If I ever get the chance to come back I'd definitely do the Milford Track, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful multi-day tramps in the world.  It's 4 days, you get taken by boat out to the start of the trail and then finish it at Milford Sound.  Truly a beautiful and pristine wilderness.