Euan and I had a day in Te Anau before Mum and Paul arrived and we decided to head up to Milford Sound, a two-hour drive deep into Fiordland.
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The drive into Milford was pretty and lower down, the broom and lupins made for good scenery and I was (for once) thankful for the slow, underpowered car so I could have a good look too
The Mirror Lakes are renowned for the reflections on a perfectly still day and while it was still it was spitting with rain and that was just enough to distort the reflections
but I’m sure you get the general idea
Here are some pics of the views from the road on the drive in (the bright sun, white snow and dark green forests were testing our (minimal) photography skills.....)
We stopped off to do a short walk through very mossy forests with the ground floor covered with beautiful green ferns. I tried to take photos of this incredible narrow chasm of rock with loads of water busting through it, huge trees stuck in the rocks where they’d been swept down by the torrent but I couldn’t do it and I had to do tame shots of ferns and trees.
Closer to Milford Sound, the road goes through the Homer Tunnel that slopes down through the granite mountain. The ice-carved rock amphitheatre either side of the tunnel dwarf the entrance (bottom right of the photo)
Keas are mountain parrots that live in the South Island and are said to be among one of the most intelligent birds in the world. They are very funny to watch and chose to hop skip and jump along rather than expend effort in flying to meet new cars that came into the car park. This one gave Euan a fright by flying up at him and onto the roof of our car.
The peak in the distance is Mitre Peak and it was the first glimpse we had. I’ve never seen it in real life but would know it anywhere as it’s been on chocolate boxes, biscuit tins etc and is iconic to NZ in a similar way that the Matterhorn is to Switzerland.
Fiordland is one of the wettest places on this planet with a rainfall of around 8 meters per year – an awful lot of rain and every now and then the earth protests by giving way. This was a massive tree slide that had recently swept across road, obviously blocking it completely.
Earth quakes and tremors are common in this area (there is a fault line running right through Fiordland – you can actually see the crack in one of the mountains) and there are more than 1000 recorded each month. Mitre Peak rises 1697m straight out of the sea (another 300m goes straight down into the sea) and it doesn’t look that big from a distance but when you’re in the water next to it, its pretty impressive. Unbelievably, it is almost the same height as Huan Shan, the mountain we hiked up in China that looked a lot higher. The water in Milford has a freshwater layer about 1-2m deep that mixes with the salt water and creates a milky brown/green layer that doesn’t filter the light through. As a result, creatures that live in the deep live closer to the surface in Milford because the light doesn’t carry down.
This is the view down the sound from where the road ends. Not many people live way down here – something like 60 during the winter and it rises to 200 in the summer but those that do love the place. I guess you’d have to really!
The boat in the bottom left of the photo is dwarfed by this rocky overhang
and when we got up close we could see why
A waterfall dwarfed this boat
and water from it created fantastic patterns and rainbows when we got up close. These falls are at minimal flow as there hasn’t been much rain. Any small amount of rain and all these rock faces just stream with waterfalls and its apparently just stunning to see. I’m not sure which I’d rather – hot sun, blue sky, no waterfalls or rain, grey, mist and loads of waterfalls and moodiness. We were very lucky to get such a perfect day but Milford in the wet is supposed to be just stunning.
Seals lazed on the rocks but we weren’t lucky enough to see any dolphins
The drive out was clearer and its amazing what you see going back the other way – we’d missed this view on the way in
We’re a long way south here and even at 11pm there is still light in the sky. It’s a lovely place and a long long way from any city but it’s so peaceful. Well, at this time of year anyway. I’m sure in the peak season it gets completely overrun with tourists.
View Larger Map
The drive into Milford was pretty and lower down, the broom and lupins made for good scenery and I was (for once) thankful for the slow, underpowered car so I could have a good look too
The Mirror Lakes are renowned for the reflections on a perfectly still day and while it was still it was spitting with rain and that was just enough to distort the reflections
but I’m sure you get the general idea
Here are some pics of the views from the road on the drive in (the bright sun, white snow and dark green forests were testing our (minimal) photography skills.....)
We stopped off to do a short walk through very mossy forests with the ground floor covered with beautiful green ferns. I tried to take photos of this incredible narrow chasm of rock with loads of water busting through it, huge trees stuck in the rocks where they’d been swept down by the torrent but I couldn’t do it and I had to do tame shots of ferns and trees.
Closer to Milford Sound, the road goes through the Homer Tunnel that slopes down through the granite mountain. The ice-carved rock amphitheatre either side of the tunnel dwarf the entrance (bottom right of the photo)
Keas are mountain parrots that live in the South Island and are said to be among one of the most intelligent birds in the world. They are very funny to watch and chose to hop skip and jump along rather than expend effort in flying to meet new cars that came into the car park. This one gave Euan a fright by flying up at him and onto the roof of our car.
The peak in the distance is Mitre Peak and it was the first glimpse we had. I’ve never seen it in real life but would know it anywhere as it’s been on chocolate boxes, biscuit tins etc and is iconic to NZ in a similar way that the Matterhorn is to Switzerland.
Fiordland is one of the wettest places on this planet with a rainfall of around 8 meters per year – an awful lot of rain and every now and then the earth protests by giving way. This was a massive tree slide that had recently swept across road, obviously blocking it completely.
Earth quakes and tremors are common in this area (there is a fault line running right through Fiordland – you can actually see the crack in one of the mountains) and there are more than 1000 recorded each month. Mitre Peak rises 1697m straight out of the sea (another 300m goes straight down into the sea) and it doesn’t look that big from a distance but when you’re in the water next to it, its pretty impressive. Unbelievably, it is almost the same height as Huan Shan, the mountain we hiked up in China that looked a lot higher. The water in Milford has a freshwater layer about 1-2m deep that mixes with the salt water and creates a milky brown/green layer that doesn’t filter the light through. As a result, creatures that live in the deep live closer to the surface in Milford because the light doesn’t carry down.
This is the view down the sound from where the road ends. Not many people live way down here – something like 60 during the winter and it rises to 200 in the summer but those that do love the place. I guess you’d have to really!
The boat in the bottom left of the photo is dwarfed by this rocky overhang
and when we got up close we could see why
A waterfall dwarfed this boat
and water from it created fantastic patterns and rainbows when we got up close. These falls are at minimal flow as there hasn’t been much rain. Any small amount of rain and all these rock faces just stream with waterfalls and its apparently just stunning to see. I’m not sure which I’d rather – hot sun, blue sky, no waterfalls or rain, grey, mist and loads of waterfalls and moodiness. We were very lucky to get such a perfect day but Milford in the wet is supposed to be just stunning.
Seals lazed on the rocks but we weren’t lucky enough to see any dolphins
The drive out was clearer and its amazing what you see going back the other way – we’d missed this view on the way in
We’re a long way south here and even at 11pm there is still light in the sky. It’s a lovely place and a long long way from any city but it’s so peaceful. Well, at this time of year anyway. I’m sure in the peak season it gets completely overrun with tourists.
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