South Island Day 12: Milford Sound

Valentine's Day. My favourite day of the whole year to be single because I'm not obliged to shower anyone with cards and gifts and meals with hiked up prices just so I can get laid this month. Nat and Shane forgot it was Valentine's Day until later in the day when we came back into phone range and I got a few messages off mates. Thus followed an evening of obligatory hand holding.

If we thought it was cold yesterday with the snow in the distance then today was bloody freezing. I woke to to a layer of frost on my car, it put me off going to the toilet for fear my arse cheeks would freeze together but then I guess that's the price of waking up to clear skies in the Fiordlands.
I'd love to spend more time here what with the awe inspiring scenery, the striking hills and mountains and the reminder of what my breath looks like but I don't think my extremities could take it.

So I headed up to Milford Sound on my own leaving Nat and Shane to their own devices as they'd decided not to bother with a tour of this particular sound, Nat figured if you'd seen one you'd seen them all and we were kayaking Doubtful Sound the next day and Shane only wanted to see Mitre Peak. Before you get to the Fiordlands you're told to expect rain as they measure their annual rainfall in metres here, usually 7 to 9 of them, and massive sandfly related blood loss. I emerged from my car brandishing my can of DEET and clutching my rain jacket before abandoning my rain jacket in favour of another can of DEET. Well you can't be too careful.

Mitre Peak

Milford Sound is basically a sod off big carpark with a wharf and an airport and a cafe in order to entertain the people that park there. I was lucky with the weather though, I don't mind kayaking in the rain but sitting on a cruise inside a boat just watching the weather through the windows would have done my head in. As it happened the weather was beautiful.
I went with Real Journeys for this nature cruise on account of the pretty boat they put you on and the fact we were going to see the glow worm cave later and it got me a discount on that. Yep, I'm a bargain whore.
They sail you up to the Tasman sea and back again with plenty of seal watching on the way and past the permanant waterfalls. The one nearest the wharf is called Bowen Falls and thats where they get all the water from for the tea and coffee for the cruise and there's another one called Stirling Falls and they get you right up to it. My love of waterfalls is well documented, it was all I could do to not jump overboard and go play in it.

And here's the thing about the sounds. They're not Sounds at all, they're Fiords. If you want to see sounds you have to go all the way up to the top of the south island to the Marlborough Sounds, they were cut by rivers and flooded with sea water whereas Doubtful and Dusky and Milford and the others at the bottom were carved out by glaciers and flooded with sea water and therein lies the difference. In fact if you look at them on a map you really can see how different they are.
But it was an awesome day on the water and I'm glad I did it.

Once I was safely back on dry land having consumed as much complimentary tea as my bladder could take I drove back towards the campsite we'd stayed at the previous night as that's where I'd be meeting Nat and Shane then we headed back down towards Te Anau for some glow worm cave action.
I'd already seen glow worms at Waitomo but they're shiny and I like them despite their appearance if you get them in the light. They're the lavae of the fungus gnat, once the glow worms have nommed enough insects they go into the pupa stage then emerge as a gnat with no mouth that spends the one day its alive shagging before it dies. Not such a hard life then ay.

Anyway, once we were back in Te Anau we headed down to Manapouri as we had a ridiculously early start there the next day. Our last booked adventure before we could chill out and lie in bed in the mornings.

We were gonna need another holiday just to get over this one.

written by

Koala Bear on February 14, 2009 from Milford Sound, New Zealand

from the travel blog: Tiny Little NZ Road Trip

tagged RoadTrip, LovinIt and SouthIsland

Send a Compliment

comment on this...