And Finally, Milford Sound

You can’t travel to Milford without “doing” the Sound surely? Milford is all about the Sound. It’s the reason why a long, winding & difficult road was hacked over & around the mountains, why a kilometre long tunnel was blasted through a mountain, why dozens of tour buses & hundreds of cars arrive daily to disgorge thousands of people. Milford Sound wouldn’t be Milford Sound without the Sound. But honestly, for me “The Road to Milford” was the masterpiece, the Sound; more a wonderful consolation prize.

Milford Village

We weren’t in any hurry to repeat our wet weather experience of the Milford Track so we gave the weather a few days to settle before we made the hour long journey for the third & final time back into Milford Sound to arrange a boat cruise.

The three carparks for the public were once again full of rentals; cars, sleeper vans & motorhomes of every shape, size & style. Private cars were few and far between & once again we felt like strangers in our own country. The bus parking at the boat terminal was full, tour buses lined both sides of the park and still more were arriving. The late morning & early afternoon cruises are always busy as this is when the buses arrive form Te Anau & Queenstown. Having now driven the Te Anau – Queenstown road, I can’t imagine what a long day of travel tourists put themselves through. It’s bad enough one way, Queenstown to Te Anau but then they have the 2 hour Milford Road to travel & then the Sound cruise, I think most would be asleep on the return journey!

We decided, after experiencing Doubtful Sound on a big boat, we’d do Milford, mid afternoon on a small one & chose Mitre Peak Cruises. Unfortunately at that time of the day & after all the rain and now the hot sun, the haze on the mountains surrounding the Sound was quite bad. I thought perhaps these should be called the Blue Mountains of Milford. There were many boats out on the Sound but not enough to detract from the beauty. Our first view, as the boat pulls out from the wharf & taking centre stage, is the iconic 1700 metre high Mitre Peak. I’d love to see it in winter when the air would be clear and the peak covered in snow.

Being on a smaller boat meant the skipper could follow along the edge of the Sound very close to the towering rock faces. We were able to see many of the smaller waterfalls & any wildlife on the very few ledges along the way including these seal pups sleeping in the sun.

We wait our turn to check out a small waterfall that sends a gentle spray over the deck.

Milford Sound is quite a bit smaller than Doubtful, only 16kms long compared with 40km, and it’s also a lot narrower. Before long we were out the entrance and into the Tasman Sea on the West Coast. Being narrower than Doubtful the sheer rock walls appeared to rise more dramatically out of the calm waters, or perhaps that was because we were exploring much closer to them than when we were on the bigger boat.

After seeing the seals I had two little girls from America standing beside me on the bow scanning the water. They “really, really” wanted to see a dolphin and according to their father if they didn’t they were going to be very upset. New Zealand was their first experience of the sea, they were from landlocked Nebraska. I explained to them that while it might be possible, the dolphins didn’t always visit the boats in Milford. The pod didn’t live in the Sound they roamed the coast and came into feed sometimes.

And then just as I finished explaining, the cry went out “Dolphins to port” and there steaming very fast towards us were a mother & her calf, just as the boat had turned and we were heading back into the Sound. The girls were ecstatic, jumping & waving about. Way off to the side the rest of the pod splashed and jumped but only these two came close and rode our bow wave (slowly) back to the entrance, where they then peeled off and swam back to their family.

The mother kept very close to the calf and nudged it out of the way occasionally, she also kept herself between us & the baby as they surfed the bow wave & swum under and around the boat. It was like she was showing the calf the “tricks of the trade”, how to have a bit of fun with the many boats that visit each day.

 

 

Our next port of call was 146 metre glacier fed Stirling Falls, one of only two permanent falls in the Sound. The falls drop from a classic “hanging valley” carved out between the mountains long ago.

 

 

I knew what was about to happen as I’ve seen plenty of photos and as we approached  I ducked back inside the boat to watch. The skipper did warn everybody that he was going to dip the bow into the falls but a number of people were either talking or didn’t understand and were still standing there watching the approach & taking photos. Then suddenly they were blasted from above by hundreds of litres of water. One guy’s cap went west, another slipped and slid over in his rush to get out of the way. The guy in the Harley Davidson jacket (from Indonesia) was having a ball, he couldn’t stop laughing. His wife couldn’t believe what had just happened.

Our last point of interest is just along from the cruise terminal. The Lady Bowen Falls drop 161 metres into the Sound and are the termination of the Bowen River. The falls provide Milford village with their electricity from a small hydroelectric scheme, and are also the water source for the settlement.

We both enjoyed the cruise very much but if I had to choose I think it would be Doubtful Sound. And maybe that was because it was an early morning cruise when the sun was still low and the water calm making it much easier to photograph. That, along with the size & isolation, the feeling that you were exploring a hidden gem that not too many people get to see (not that Milford isn’t isolated, because it is). Then again Milford is more dramatic where the walls seemed to be closing in on you. They are both different but equally beautiful.

On our way back along the covered walkway to the car we had one more encounter with the local wildlife, a very large stick insect heading out onto the road, she (females are much larger) started swaying as we approached (trying hard to look like a twig in the wind) which actually gave her away, if she had stayed still I probably would have thought she was a twig on the path. David got her to walk onto his hand and moved her into the bushes. We were ahead of the crowd and I’m sure if we hadn’t spotted the insect she would have been squashed under foot.

 

 

And that was it. The road to Milford, done & dusted. We had a fantastic time, walked some beautiful tracks, saw some amazing scenery, enjoyed many encounters with the wildlife & thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Cascade Creek. And the best bit of all? Taking twelve days to do it.

Homer Tunnel & the Road To Milford

The next day was another stunning one and we decided to head off to the “rock garden” beside the entrance to the Homer Tunnel. We were on a mission; to see if we could locate the Rock Wren- Piwauwau. The rock wren is slightly larger than the Rifleman and similar looking with long legs & a short tail. It is NZ’s only true alpine bird, it lives above the bush line and in various pockets of the Southern Alps of the South Island. A small population is known to exist in the rock garden beside the entrance to the Homer Tunnel.

But before we reached the tunnel our first stop along the road, along with a few dozen others, was at Monkey Creek. This is one of the stopping points for the tour buses and while we were there at least 3 buses pulled in. The 360 degree views of the Upper Hollyford Valley from this advantage point were fantastic. Down by Monkey Creek are a number stone cairns, most of the people on the buses rushed down to fill their drink bottles with the crystal clear water when they arrived (obviously this is mentioned in their itinerary).

Back on the road, the views are jaw droppingly spectacular and I spent the whole road trip going “wow, wow, look at that, OMG….”. At every turn in the road the near vertical towering rock faces of the mountains rose straight up beside us.

We parked in the large gravel car park beside the east entrance to the Homer Tunnel and followed the nature walk track up through the alpine vegetation and the huge boulders & rocks that litter the area, it’s in amongst these that the rock wren live.

This "little" valley with its snow melt waterfall tumbling over the cliff face at the back isn’t quite as small as it looks. In the second photo, see if you can spot the two people ahead of me, look for a spot of red.

 

 

We stayed in the area scanning for the wrens for over an hour but sadly we were unable to locate any. There were also no keas on the ground(they are known to frequent the area) but we did watch a group of 4 soaring and squawking around high overhead.  We stopped again on another day but were still unable to find any wrens. I took the photo below looking back down the Upper Hollyford Valley, David is in the first photo searching over that side, see if you find the little black dot (bottom centre). I reckon he looks like Sasquatch (Big Foot) in the second one.

Huge boulders, sheer rock faces- Homer Saddle.

After giving up on the wrens we decided to take a run through to Milford just because it was such a brilliant day and you never know when the weather might turn. We lined up in the queue at the entrance to the tunnel waiting for the lights to change. The Homer Tunnel is  945m above sea level & is 1270m long with a gradient of 1 in 10 as it drops towards Milford.

More mountains more vertical faces. The mountain on the left had a strange protrusion, it’s own nipple! The peak on the right was extremely sharp.

The next “must stop” was The Chasm, another very busy place with tour buses, big & small, motorhomes of many different sizes and rental cars galore parked in the large car park. A short loop walk through bush took us to a foot bridge that spans the Cleddau River as it’s forced into 22m deep narrow ravine, The Chasm, which has been carved out by the water flow over thousands of years. It wasn’t much fun sharing the bridge with a few dozen others and this was my least liked place in all of Milford. I did like the “chop sticks” in the third photo though, forced into one of the holes.

We set up our director chairs & got the picnic bag & thermos out and had our lunch beside the ute while in the carpark. This was much to the amusement of the people on the tour buses as they were herded back on-board. I think we had the last laugh.

Arriving in Milford we were greeted by a three car parks full of tourist vehicles but thankfully hardly any people; most would have been out on a Milford Sound Cruise. I had been following the creek numbers along the Milford Road in amongst all the named waterways since way back before Cascade Creek and it was surprising to see the final number, Creek #165, just before the cruise terminal. Who would have thought there were that many.

We walked to a viewing point and I got to see my first sight of Milford Sound and the very recognisable and iconic Mitre Peak. We’d missed the midday cruises (although we hadn't planned to take one this day) and didn’t want to wait for the late afternoon ones (we’d return in a few days) so we had a coffee in the one and only cafe, filled the ute with diesel from the one & only pump, went to the one & only toilet and headed back up the road.

The next stop not too far from Milford was at the Tutoko Bridge where there is a good view of Mt Tutoko the highest mountain in Fiordland.

Now we were able to view the scenery from a different angle  The views heading back up the road were just as spectacular. I can’t imagine what people would think of the road trip if the day was dull and overcast with low cloud. They’d be wondering what all the fuss was about. Now if it was raining, that’s a whole different story. As we were to find out later in the week.

Approaching the west side of the Homer Tunnel through the Cleddau Valley. The tunnel can be seen in the second photo, bottom centre.

It’s amazing to think that such a long tunnel has been drilled through the impressive Darran Mountain Range & part of the Main Divide, what an incredible achievement. Excavation started in 1935 and the tunnel pierced in 1940, WWII halted work for some time and an large avalanche damaged the eastern end in 1945 but the tunnel was finally opened in 1953. Milford Sound was opened up to the masses. I'm not sure whether that was such a good thing but I guess as one of our most popular tourist attractions it put New Zealand on the world map!

The Milford Road is absolutely stunning! I want to come back in winter.