Day 4 – Misleading Sound
13,942 Steps
Buckle up buttercups, today will be a long one! Today is my birthday, and I truly believe I have someone or something looking out for me. Yesterday I finished off the blog with a sad note that today’s tour to Milford Sound was cancelled since the Milford Highway being closed due to an avalanche warning, but early this morning we received notification that they were reopening the road at 1 o’clock this afternoon before closing it again at 5pm on Wednesday. Drew jumped on this the second he read that and booked us a spot on an afternoon tour then and there! And my goodness, it was everything I hoped it would be!
But first, breakfast. I finished up my coffee while watching the rain from the balcony before getting the news that I should probably get myself ready to leave faster than we had planned. I needed to quickly get a waterproof jacket for today so we ducked into Outdoor Sports Te Anau and spoke with a lovely assistant named Yoshie who made it such an easy transaction, helped us find exactly what we needed and got us through and out and on our way! Yesterday we spotted Miles Better Pies on the main strip in Te Anau that we told ourselves we would try for breakfast, so I grabbed a lamb and mint pie, Drew got a steak and cheese and we ate by the lake again before trotting on home to get on the road.
We had a small itinerary laid out for today that had us travelling up Milford Highway as far as we could go before the closure, stopping at a few sights along the way, so we kept to that plan since we were heading in the right direction anyway. First up was the viewpoint of the south fjord of Lake Te Anau. It was a quick stop with a similar view to what we’ve seen before, which does not detract at all from the beauty, but it was a brief stop before heading off to the next.
The scenery started drastically changing at this point, moving through lush green forests and open grassy plains. We soon pulled up on the Eglinton Valley viewpoint, which was a vast expanse of flat grassy plains backdropped by the dramatically sharp cliffs of the snow capped mountains. It was awe inspiring standing in this space at the scale that it is. I felt so small looking at these mountains and spotting the glacial waterfall run offs, being surrounded by quiet. It was extremely humbling.
We re-entered a forested area as we made our way on the winding highway and found ourselves at our next point of interest called Mirror Lakes. As the lake is within a heavily forested area, the water has taken on the trees tannins which makes it a dark colour – absolutely suited for reflections. If it weren’t drizzling, the water would have been completely still and a perfect canvas for reflections of the mountainous backdrop. Although, I think the raindrop ripples on the surface were also pretty spectacular.
Because there are so many scenic wonders here in New Zealand, we often come across small lookouts or pull-ins where we get to appreciate it by ourselves. When we pulled in down a short track labelled Lake Gunn, there was one car just leaving but then it was just Drew and I standing on the pebbly bank. To our left was a mouth where the creek making its way down the mountain met the lake gently lapping at our feet, creating beautiful turquoise water where the two meet. In front was a lake bordered by two slopes meeting at a sharp V, with white capped peaks beyond. I could have sat here for hours, but we were starting to watch the clock a little more closely, knowing that we needed to be at the dock in Milford by 2.
We had one more chance to stretch our legs before a slightly longer stretch onto Milford itself, which was Lake Fergus. There was a small bank were we could get right down to the water and see the lovely view and the colourful river rocks. I took one of my favourite photos here!
Part of the Milford Highway is a one lane tunnel that takes you from the high altitude that we have been travelling at so far, down to the valley below. But because it’s only one lane, each way has to periodically stop and wait for its turn. This is the point we started running into some traffic since this is where the road was previously closed, and many of the cars had the same goal as us. Since we were already travelling a little slower, we had an opportunity to see a Kea bird up close since the little guy was ducking through cars trying to con food from drivers. Kea, the world’s only alpine parrot is known as the ‘Clown of the Alps’ to South Islanders; and has recently been heralded as the world’s smartest bird and is only found on the south island of New Zealand, has a population of as low as 3000, so spotting one is pretty special.
After travelling from Fergus along the winding roads, we found ourselves joining the queue for Homer Tunnel. While we were stopped amongst the piles of snow that had been pushed to the side, the rain started getting floaty, and thicker. So not only did the highway open for the one day we needed it to, but it started snowing! It was magical, completely magical!
It was soon our turn to move through the tunnel, which was about a kilometre long and downhill the entire way. It was pretty lucky that we were able to see one kea, but we were about to feel even luckier when we emerged from the tunnel, the first car in the queue for the tunnel back up was absolutely covered in them! There were 3 on the bonnet picking at something on the windscreen, another on the ground next to the car, and yet another on the mirror of the van behind. We’ve had friends who have visited New Zealand 3 times and are yet to have seen one, so I count us as very fortunate. We had a few more hairpin turns to serpent our way to ground level, but then we were on our way, next stop, Milford Sound!
It wasn’t too much longer before we started getting a few peeks here and there of some peaks through the trees and finding a park. I have been so excited to see this area, and with the emotional bumps we’ve had in relation to this tour, I was feeling a little overwhelmed. As soon as I could, I excitedly hopped out of the car and stood on the bank of the fjord, just staring at these stunning, other worldly peaks jutting out of the still waters and shrouded in mist. I’m not too proud to admit that I shed a tear or two.
I basically dragged Drew along towards the terminal, eager to get this tour started. I’m so grateful for Drew, not only for rebooking this experience to ensure I got to do what I had been looking very much forward to on my birthday, but also for braving a boat again after our last experience on one. With how scary that past experience was, and knowing the mark is has left, I’m going to be forever thankful that he did this for me, allowing me to have these experiences and make these memories.
Fjords are narrow inlets of water surrounded by dramatic cliffs. They were formed thousands of years ago when receding glaciers carved out the terrain and left these stunning underwater valleys in their wake.
Like a fjord, a sound is a valley that has been filled with sea water. However, a sound is usually formed by the flooding of a river valley, not a glacial valley.
When we boarded, we headed straight up to the top deck, although if I were to do this ever again, I would still be outside, but on the lower deck – I think this would make for a better viewing experience. Practically the second we started moving and got outside the harbour, it started absolutely chucking it down – I was drenched within minutes, but I wasn’t going to let that dampen my spirits. I have to admit, I was well overstimulated for the first part of the tour, so I took basically nothing in from our tour guide, but the wealth of knowledge of the guide running our Cruise Milford cruise was fantastic.
When I did clock back into the tour, I learnt that this area gets the most rain in the world at sea level, so really it was no surprise that we were already dripping wet. Although this area is called Milford Sound, this body of water is actually a fjord that was formed over 3 separate ice ages where rocks were pushed under glaciers. This carved out the deep valley which primarily holds salt water. Due the amount of rain, ice and snow melt this area gets, it also has a darker layer of fresh water on top, making it an incredible ecosystem and producing a mixture of both salt and freshwater species of flora and fauna. And it’s deepest point is over 300m deep! If you couldn’t tell, I find this incredibly fascinating.
We were shown the most prominent sights within the fjord during the tour, some of which were in rapid fire:
- Pixie and Fairy Falls, which are twin falls making their way down from the mountain tops.
- Copper point which is part of the wind tunnel within the fjord, with wind speeds recorded last night at 174 knots, and its fastest ever recorded winds of over 300km/h.
- We headed out into the ocean to see the peninsula that was created by the Pacific tectonic plate getting pushed up by the Australian plate (we braved 7m swells to see that)
- Kissing Turtles rock, which looks like it sounds
- I missed the name of it, but there’s a waterfall that runs down a sub fault of the Pacific fault line, which opened up about 1500 years ago
- Seal point, where all the male pups who have been pushed from their family units hang out
- Fiordland Crested Penguin breeding corner, where we were able to briefly see a shy breeding pair
- Stirling falls that reaches 151m high
- The remnants of an underwater observatory that was open for more than 30 years, which used to give an incredible insight into the underwater ecosystem, but was destroyed in a huge storm that came through Milford Sound a few months ago
- And Bowen falls, which is one of only two permanent waterfalls in the fjord reaching 162m high, that also creates power for the village in the area.
All images below are taken chronologically, we saw different weather in every direction we looked, which I suppose in itself is an interesting quirk of the fjord biome.
We got back to the harbour just as dusk was falling, which created some spectacular and mystical views of this misty fjord. This was an incredible experience, and I 100% recommend that people who have the ability to, come and see this with your own eyes!
We had a little time left of the afternoon after the tour, so once we regained feeling to our faces and fingers, we hopped back in the car and started our journey home, stopping off at a couple of sights along the way. First up was a waterfall called The Chasm. This is where we met yet another Kea in the carpark! From what I’ve seen online, you would typically expect to head out on a bridge that gives you a great view of this very powerful waterfall dropping into a boiling pot of white water below before slowly draining through the stones and down the rest of the mountain. We were instead met with a fenced off bridge and viewpoint. There was no signage around, so I have no idea what happened there, but I imagine this to be the results of that massive storm that came through a few months ago since we could see some damage to the bridge, and a huge, huge tree half blocking the flow of waterfall. We very safely leaned out as far as we could along the walkway to see what we could, which was pretty impressive as it was. I can only imagine how impactful this stop would be when it’s in good condition.
There was a little bit of a drive between The Chasm and our next stop, so we took the opportunity to really take in the scenery. I have essentially no experience with snow, which is probably why I’m obsessed with the mountains throughout New Zealand, but this drive was the first time we were really in amongst it. We were driving past huge cliff faces absolutely covered in snow, piles of avalanche aftermath, trees holding snowfall in their leaves – I’m completely enamoured by it. Most of the roadside snow was at the other end of the Homer tunnel, and I couldn’t help but request a frolic stop when we made it through, plus it’s my birthday, and the day before Drew and my wedding anniversary, I’m pretty sure it’s part of the contract that he appease my inner child.
The last of my list a mile long for this day was a stop at Pop’s Lookout. This is by far the most impressive lookout we have seen so far. The view was a stunning combination of forest covered mountains, a raging creek of glacial runoff, and the magnificent snow capped mountain range that we have been exploring.
We made this stop pretty quick since we were a little unsure about making this drive home in the dark, so it wasn’t too long before we were back on the road making our way back home. We were both exhausted after this huge day, really just grabbing dinner and flopping onto the couch to round off the day.
Today was magic. Absolute magic.
A window so slight
Mother leaves a striking scar
The sound of the mists
0 Comments