Milford Sound

At some point I will sum up the trip, and give general tips, and I may make the point that combining New Zealand and Australia may not be the wisest idea. Sure, they are in the same general area, but they are different enough to have quite different weather patterns. If we had gone later, Australia would have been too hot, at least in parts. However, waiting another month or so might have been good for the New Zealand side of things.

Milford Sound is so beautiful that Rudyard Kipling called it the eighth wonder of the world. Mitre Peak is considered to be exquisitely shaped. The Maori say that the creators of the area had been practicing making all the other mountains and lakes, but this area was the last they created and was perfect.

We never saw Mitre Peak. The clouds never lifted enough for it to become visible. As you can see from these pictures, it was quite cloudy and foggy, and there was intermittent rain. Many things were hidden from view. As it was, we were lucky. Our initial plan was to kayak on the sound, but we started to have doubts about this being the right place to learn how to kayak, so we changed to a boat tour. If we had kayaked, we would have been nearly drowned by the rain, plus having a good chance of drowning ourselves anyway, so that worked out.

The reason we wanted to kayak is because tourism sites will frequently show pictures of dolphins swimming among kayakers (actually, there may only be one picture that gets shared), and you think, oh my gosh, what an amazing experience. It would be, but it also has kind of caused this myth to develop that the Sound is full of dolphins and you will definitely see them if you go. That is not true. Chris (who has kayaked with dolphins), says he sees them about every fourth trip. That is not bad odds at all, but you need to have expectations set appropriately. The only wildlife we saw on the cruise itself was a single seal.

That should in no way be seen as a criticism of the trip. It was not what we expected, but it was still beautiful. Often the fog made it eerily beautiful.

We got on the bus in Te Anau, but there were only five of us there (us three and a couple on their honeymoon). Everyone else had started in Queensland, and then returned there, which must have added four hours to their trip. I'm glad we did it that way. The downside is there was not much choice of seats left. I did not end up near my sisters, though we saw each other on stops.

There are several points of interest along the way. I think there normal plan is to do all the stops on the way when everyone is fresh, and then go straight back on the return trip. Some of the scenic viewpoints were so fogged in on the way, that we made a few extra stops on the way back. Again, I kind of liked it. That picture of the kea on the branch up above is one of my favorites. It's like something out of another world.

We saw many kea. We learned a bit more about the birds. One thing to know is that they are inveterate thieves. They will steal food of course (which is not healthy for them, but they'll still do it), but they will also go for shiny objects. So, you can shake your keys to attract them, but do not let them grab your keys, or you have just stranded yourself.

Some of the stops include Knob Flats, where you have glacier deposits, and the cataract, where the running water has carved twisted, fantastic patterns.

There are mountains between Te Anau and Milford Sound. There is dense vegetation below, but the timberline is fairly low, so you have trees, and then an abrupt stop to where it is almost all bare rock. I am probably not describing this well, but there are two related things that I want to describe. One is that at the upper levels there is nothing to absorb rain, so during rain waterfalls show up everywhere. That is unless it is windy, in which case the wind blows the water streams into the air, so you just have a valley full of misty bridal veils.

The other point of this is that apparently even the lower vegetation is not rooted very deep, so when a slide is triggered, it really clears everything away. We passed a recent slide, and one that had been there for a while, and I took pictures, but they just did not do it justice. There's a link to the main photo site if you want to take a look, but it just does not capture the scope.

You don't go completely over the mountains, as you pass through the Homer tunnel. This was another case of not being able to take an adequate picture. I wanted to convey how small it looks. And really, I guess it is not that small, because our driver told us that the bus could pass a car, though it is a bit touchy, and certainly two cars can pass each other. If two buses enter from opposite ends, someone will need to back up. (Once you emerge, you start going down steeply winding roads, and we actually did pass an accident, though we managed to get down safely).

I have mentioned before how having a guide with a personal connection can make a difference, and also how we had a certain amount of luck with our timing, like with the takahe and the echidna. We kind of hit the motherload here.

Our driver was Sam, and since he was a broadly built redhead, he can introduce himself as Samwise Gamgee and it seems reasonable, though he would be a bit tall for a Hobbit. He was holding a baby during the layover in Te Anau, and he said it was his baby, but then she was being held by a woman in the middle of the bus, so I thought it had been a joke. Then she was being passed around among a few other passengers, and she did get brought up to the front, and I thought, okay, she is his, and the passengers are all helping, which is nice. Will I get a turn?

In reality, yes, she was his baby, but also riding along was Sam's wife (the child's mother), and both sets of grandparents. That's kind of a sweet thing to have happen anyway, but also, the wife's parents had raised their family in the area, and had gone camping in Fiordland many times. Her father told stories about the area, and we got to see pictures of floods and avalanches that had occurred.

Sam's father told us he was one of the few births resulting directly from the Homer tunnel. The tunnel was a public works project started during the depression in 1935 (that was not just the US, much like the current financial hardships are not just us). His father and his uncle worked on the tunnel, his uncle bringing his father along on days off, allowing his father and mother to meet. Anyway, it all just added some extra color, and the baby was cute.

One other possible useful tidbit. Trekking is a very popular activity in New Zealand in general, and specifically in the Fiordland Area. You would think that the Milford track would be the big one, but the heavily recommended one is Kepler. Probably worth checking out.

http://www.kiwidiscovery.com/index.cfm/milford
http://www.fiordland.org.nz/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer_Tunnel
http://www.newzealandnz.co.nz/great-walks/
http://harristravel.shutterfly.com/700