3rd December 2009
After a very sound night’s sleep, no doubt brought on by the vast amounts of pure New Zealand air we breathed yesterday we were all set to explore another of fiordland’s sounds.
Milford Sound is the more touristy of the two fiords with numourous operators offering a variety of cruises. It is also smaller than Doubtful and younger in terms of the glacier which formed it. It is one of NZ’s biggest tourist attractions with over half a million visitors a year.
We wanted to visit Milford for a few reasons. Firstly, the road to the sound is reportedly one of the most scenic mountain highways in the world, climbing to 945m above sea level and moving through some outstandingly beautiful scenery before dropping down to the sound. Secondly, Milford Sound is supposed to be quite different to Doubtful meaning that the question ‘which is best?’ doesn’t really have an answer - we wanted to see for ourselves.
Again, we picked a company which specialises in small groups of 12 people, ‘Trips & Tramps’. These guys also offer an opportunity to do some walking, whether on a 2 hour round trip to Key Summit for views over the valley or some shorter nature walks. We liked that it involved much more than just the cruise on the sound.
We were picked up at 8am by our guide Roland and started our journey to the sound along the highway. As we drove along, Roland kept up a running commentary on interesting facts about the road and the sound and the surrounding wilderness. We started by following the banks of Lake Teanau, which is NZ’s second largest lake and the largest volume of water in the southern hemisphere. Very soon the lakeshore changed to rolling pastures that then gave way to flat plains with dramatic vistas of snow capped mountains in the background.
Our first stop was a short walk along the boardwalk at Mirror Lakes which took us through beech forest and wetlands. By this time it was still fairly overcast and we couldn’t see the tops of the mountains.
Back on the road, we passed across more plains, full of lupins with yet more magical vistas before reaching the Divide. This is the lowest east-west pass in the southern alps. Then it was onto the Homer Tunnel. This is the 1.2km, 1 in 10 gradient tunnel built through the hard granite rock and completed in 1953 which finally made Milford Sound accessible by road. It took about 20 years to complete (with production stopping completely during the war) and was only given indoor lighting in 2002 after a tourist bus caught fire.
Coming out of the tunnel, we started our descent down into Milford itself, passing by the impossibly blue and clear Cleddau river on our way. There’s nothing in the township, although it does house up to 300 people who work on the Sound. All the electricity for the township is generated by the massive and powerful Bowen waterfalls near the harbor.
Our first sight of the sound, with its famous and much-photographed Mitre Peak proved to be quite wonderous. Still, dark waters with soaring, rocky peaks rising high above, with forests clinging precariously to their sheer sides. These sometimes loose their shaky hold which results in a tree avalanche, which can then take many years to regenerate.
We boarded our cruise boat for a two and a half hour nature cruise of the sound along with quite a few other people. This part of the tour is run by another tour provider and incorporates other tours, so consequently there were a few more people on the boat, although well short of the 150 person capacity. Even with the extra people, we certainly didn’t feel the boat was crowded and we were able to see and photograph everything we wanted to.
The cruise started by following the southern shoreline towards the Tasman Sea with the nature guide pointing out various points of interest along the way and telling us about the geology of the fiord, with its gneiss granite (the hardest kind) and the copper, iron and quartz streaks in it. As with Doubtful Sound yesterday, the cliffs plunge right down into the depths of the fiord making it possible for boats to get right up to them without fear of scraping the bottom of the boat.
While we were looking at the vegetation growing on the sides of the cliffs we spotted a seal in the water. He had caught a fish and was playing about with it, before he finally rolled onto his back and ate it.
We reached the Tasman Sea, which although choppier than the fiord was still quite calm, since the weather had turned into a perfectly sunny day without a cloud in the sky. As we headed back into the fiord, the boat pulled alongside a rocky bay where penguins are rumoured to hang out and today we were in luck - only two, but still there they were, tiny little fiordland crested penguins. Super.
We returned down the northern side of the Sound, pulling in so close to one waterfall so that even without the usual rainfall, anybody not sat inside the boat was soaked!
When we arrived back at the cruise terminal our guide was waiting for us. Since the weather was so wonderful for the first time in ages and we were finally experiencing sunshine and clear blue skies, we had decided to treat ourselves to a little extra experience and book a helicopter ride over the sound. It was just such a perfect day for it.
Roland dropped us at the helicopter before taking the rest of the group off for a nature walk that we would catch up with. We were given a quick safety briefing, then six of us climbed aboard the helicopter with me electing to sit in the front. (Ed warned me not to touch anything). Then it was up and away. My first time in a helicopter and it was an awesome experience. We flew past the sound before looping up and around the mountain range above it. It was a completely different sensation to being in a plane and each time the chopper flew over the top of the peak and the mountain dropped away beneath you it really was like soaring. At every turn, every angle there was another perfect landscape waiting. Beautiful.
We were flying over the snow capped peaks, all part of the Don Glacier, then the pilot set the helicopter down on the snowy top of the glacier. Suddenly we were walking in deep snow (I went down a few inches when I got out of the chopper!). We could see right across to Aspiring National Park and the pointy peak of Mount Aspiring.
We had a good 5-10 minutes out at the top, with many photographs taken. Then it was all back into the helicopter to fly over more frozen lakes and glaciers before heading down past the Hollyford Valley and into our landing spot besides the Homer Tunnel where Roland was waiting to take us up to the small nature walk where the other tour guests were.
An absolutely mind-blowing, awsome experience, on a perfect day with great visibility. What a great memory of Milford Sound.
Nothing was going to top the views we had seen from the helicopter, so instead of going on a two hour walk to the top of a mountain for yet more views, we elected to just do some riverside walks with our guide Roland. In actual matter of fact this turned into just a relaxing sit by the side of the Cleddau river before taking a short walk up the Hollyford Valley through some dense rainforest and up to the top of a roaring waterfall where we again sat for a short while. While we were up there we dipped our feet into the freezing water and experienced a kind of ice-cream headache sensation in our feet!
We returned to the bottom to pick up the others in our group and headed out to a picnic site at Deer Flat, again next to a crystal clear river, this time on the plains and surrounded by lupins. Roland made us bush tea in a billy can and we enjoyed some delicious buttery biscuits. A fitting end to an absolultely superb tour.
