Wandergliding: Magnificent Milford Sound

November 24^th, 2019

Milford Sound is one of those “must dos” in New Zealand. Supposedly Rudyard Kipling called it the “8^th Wonder of the World”. When in Rome…

Even the drive there was stunning. Okay, the last post was about the nice drive to the area but from my campground to the actual sound was even better. I could have done with a co-pilot to take pictures and videos as everywhere you looked…wow! At first, I was gobsmacked by this waterfall and that one, often cascading hundreds of meters down the mountainside but soon there were just too many. I was lucky that it was still springtime and that it had rained the night before. I can easily say that I have never seen so many waterfalls in one day in my entire life. In fact, by the end of the day I hardly looked at them anymore…waterfall overload!

Big waterfalls on my way to the sound:

The boat cruise I had booked was at 12:45 and I left the campsite with at least an hour to stop here and there. Near the end I had to bypass a few of the viewpoints as time was running out but I could hit them on the way back. On one stop there was this big old pale green school type bus/motorhome. Not surprisingly there was a young hippie couple in it with their little dog. What caught my attention was that there was a kea bird pouncing around on their roof. The kea is the only alpine parrot in the world…how cool is that! The couple were enjoying it at first and even held their little beagle up to the slightly opened sunroof from the inside to see if the two would interact, and the kea was curious…but soon he was too curious. He started to peck at another sunroof they had near the back of the bus seeing what he could pick apart and he did manage to pull away a bit of black plastic. The Aussie man came out of the bus armed with a long pole and tried to shoo the bird away which then flew over to the only other camper at the pullout except for Betty 2.0. Well that older German couple promptly left so then he flew over to Betty’s roof. There wasn’t much for the kea to peck or pull at but after I snapped a few pics I attempted to shoo him away and I have to say, they are cocky birds. He did fly away but not before I recoiled once, worrying I might lose a finger!

It's almost like he's staking Betty 2.0 as his own!

Ten minutes further down the road, with amazing views every which way you looked, I saw a signpost for Gertrude Saddle. Back in the hostel in Auckland at the start of my trip, a Czech guy in my room was on his second trip to New Zealand and he said that one of his main objectives was to do the day hike at Gertrude Saddle. The previous time he was there the weather was not good. I made a note of it and hoped to do the hike. However when I visited the information centre yesterday in Te Anau, it was pretty obvious that winter conditions still existed up on the saddle and it was too early in the season for me to attempt the hike. It did look stunning though, a massive natural amphitheater of mountain faces and the trail began with a walk right through the middle of it.

Beautiful views on the way...

On the road...GORGEOUS!

This one if for my niece Rachel.

Shortly after, the road approached another similar natural amphitheater, even grander on scale. I wondered where could the road go now? We are reaching a dead end. Welcome the Homer Tunnel, a 1.2-kilometer-long tunnel with a 10:1 downward grade. It wasn’t wide enough for 2 lanes so there were traffic lights at either side. I like tunnels…and this was a good ‘un.

A very big wall...

Entering the tunnel:

Popping out the other side was jaw dropping. No wonder Peter Jackson filmed a lot of The Hobbit films in this country! The road snaked back down another natural amphitheater. Eventually it slowly leveled out and I reached the sound. I found out later that technically Milford should be called a fjord, not a sound as it was created by glaciers which tend to make it narrower and steeper whereas a sound is formed by the flooding of a river valley. The captain also mentioned that James Cook circumnavigated New Zealand three times but never journeyed into Milford, thinking it was just an inlet…too bad for him as he missed something special.

Coming out the other side...

Big walls everywhere!

The cruise itself was about $100 NZD for close to a two hour trip but of course they get you at the parking too as you have no other option. Parking was $30 for 3 hours, the minimum you could buy but also what you needed. What to do? I walked into the airport-like terminal where half a dozen companies operated, found Cruise Milford and received my boarding pass. It was fairly busy inside and many tourists came on coaches from Queenstown which is a long day trip (4 hour drive each way).

The terminal:

Out on the breakwater:

Here comes my boat:

This was a massive waterfall, the biggest volume-wise, in the sound and it was right near the dock, in fact it sprayed you once in a while.

All touring boats did the same circuit and in fact they were purposefully spread out by the harbourmaster since they stopped at the same waterfalls, points of interest etc. It was a lovely cruise, a bit bumpy heading out into the wind and the waves, some good swells at the opening to the open ocean, the Tasman Sea, and all in all good fun. We stopped at a few waterfalls (one of which drenched many people), saw a few seals sleeping on rocks and got close to a couple of little penguins which were a different type to the one I saw a few weeks ago. What a place! I will let the pictures and the videos do most of the talking.