Milford Sound

Another early start, this is becoming a nasty holiday habit. Our journey progresses in the dark and even when the sun rises it is difficult to see through banks of fog swirling and collecting in low lying hamlets. We pass in and out of these pockets of eeriness; at their edges they seem to melt away as I look out through the car window.

The worst of the visibility is just before Te Anua whose inhabitants live next to another picturesque lake. We will return here this evening. But it is after this that the scenery really becomes dramatic again. Now the mists clear and the sun shines brightly on dense dark green rainforest covering the mountains slopes which jut against the roadside. I struggle to see any gaps in the trees. A particularly awesome spot is called Knobby’s Flats (Kiwis seem to share the Aussies way of naming things). We fight through the coaches of tourists all trying to capture the same shot: humans in the foreground and Knobby’s in the back.

The next stop is the mirror lakes, no prize for guessing where they derive their names from, though the water is so still it is actually hard to distinguish at times what is real and what is reflected.

There are lots of places to stop and take photos of the rugged beauty: sharp angular rises, spiky jags, serried ranks with no regimentation, narrow passes, mountain peaks swaddled like babies in white blankets, slopes heavy with snow to the point of avalanche, dry riverbeds with big icy boulders and frosted sparkle in the early morning sunshine. Shortly before the Homer Tunnel, the last obstacle before Milford Sound we stop at a beautiful spot. It is so peaceful; all you can hear are the calls of parrots from the rainforest as you gaze at the back of the peaks that are building up towards Milford Sound.

After we drive through the tunnel the vistas open up. There is a Maori legend which tells of a great warrior that uses his giant green axe to carve out the Sounds along Fordland and as time goes on his skill increases, finally he reaches Milford Sound where his true mastery is unveiled. I believe it at this point. Wow.

Milford Sound should actually be called a Fjord and not a Sound. Fjords are valleys produced by glaciation, forming steep vertical cliffs extending deep under water whilst a Sound is formed when the sea floods a river valley. Whatever the technical jargon the result is unforgettable. I began missing it the day after our visit.

We board a boat, the Milford Mariner, a crusty sailor’s choice for sure and maybe named because Albatrosses can be sighted from the decks if you are lucky. The voyage takes place in glorious sunshine; we are very lucky: this place receives seven metres of rainfall a year. I think we are lucky for many reasons, as we sail close to the cliffs edges and I peer down through the waters to the rock below before catching sight of the waterfalls like rainbow veils; I feel as if I could reach out and lift them up. The pot of gold lies in the beauty of this arresting place.

Even the wildlife lines up for our perusal, fur seals basking on the rocks. I see a bird swimming underwater towards us before realising it is a seal cork screwing under the surface. Then as we exit the mouth of the Fjord and the Tasman Sea opens out, we see a pod of dolphins. The girls giggle and run either side of the deck to watch these glorious mammals’ shapes as they swim under our boat. ‘Bottle nosed dolphins’, one of the crews tell us as we watch the dolphins play in the sunshine, jumping out of the water but too quick for our camera.

I can see turquoise waters as the boat turns around, they are overlying small sandbanks as the cliffs veer to the left. The sheer scale of the land makes it difficult to comprehend what we see. We are told the Stirling Falls we pass on our return are three times the size of Niagara but next to their neighbouring peak they shrink. We take lots of photos of Mitre Peak as we return and you can see why it gets its name, closely resembling a Bishops’ hat. This stunning sight is actually a set of five peaks but it appears as one as it reaches just over a mile up into the pale blue sky.

We stay the night at Te Anau but rather than take a break, we grab some fish and chips and head out in darkness again by boat, this time across Te Anau’s lake (the second biggest in NZ) in search of the glow worm colony. This colony was mentioned in Maori legend but only rediscovered in the 1900’s.

We walk through some great caves. I can’t think of ever having seen such active caves before with shrieking, swirling waters from Lake Orbell above penetrating the rock to roar crystal clear in whirlpools around us. I stare at this pliable water that must be as hard as diamond to have carved its way through solid rock forming these shapes and openings.

We reach the glow worm colony by canoe and in pitch darkness these little starts twinkle above our heads. As I stare I can see they don’t twinkle on and off and but shimmer and shake as the tiny creatures that make these pearls of light move back and forth. We are told to stay quiet not to ruin anyone’s enjoyment of the magic and for once my kids do not need reminding so carried away are they by these sights.