February 17 - Milford Sound

First, a geography lesson.  It shouldn't be called Milford Sound, it should be called Milford Fjord.  A sound is an inlet formed by river action whereas a fjord is formed by glacial action.  Us BC wimps solve most of the problem by calling them inlets (Howe Fjord?).  So, there you go - I was listening to the driver.

We chose a bus trip instead of renting a car because I hoped we would get some good commentary and I figured such a long drive (3+ hours each way) would make me snooze.   I was correct on both counts and also, since we haven't traveled a road at over 30 km/h for the last 4 weeks (except the odd downhill),  highway speeds scared the stuffing out of me!

We were second on the bus and got the seats right behind Bruce the driver.  His day started off poorly because he couldn't get the bus started and was a bit late (hmm?) so he tried to make up time by rally driving a 40 passenger bus.

One of the stops along the way was the Mirror Lakes.  Yes, the photo is right side up, but notice how the blue in the reflection is a deeper colour.

Another view of the valley on the way there.

One of the features of the trip there (for us engineer types) is the Homer tunnel, drilled to connect the two valleys through the saddle.  The Milford side was sheer cliff for hundreds of meters, so a tunnel was the only option.  It is 1200 meters long and slopes steeply (about 10%) to the Milford end.  It is also one lane (15 minutes between signals).  This photo is of the Milford portal, taken on the way back.

We're on the cruise now, and here are two views of Mitre Peak, "the most photographed mountain in NZ."  

This is one of the glacier formed hanging valleys along the fiord.

Brown seals.  Similar size to our seals, and very tame - no doubt used to the twenty or thirty tour boats a day.  

A very steep section of the fiord.  A lot of it was like this, just about vertical.  I went up and chatted to the skipper for a while (young fellow).  Their tidal difference is about 3 meters.  I commented that there didn't seem to be as much animal or plant life attached to the inter-tidal zone as I expected.  He told me there are a lot of soft shelled mussels, but much of the year the top of 

the water column (as much as 100 feet) can be fresh water, due to the amount of rainfall Milford gets, so only certain types of life survive.  Since it had been dry for a couple of days, the fresh 

water layer was 14 feet today.

Speaking of the weather, we were lucky.  The skipper told me this was only about the 3rd perfect 

day since December.  More often than not it is bucketing with rain.  Another complaint of his was 

that the marketing folks always show dolphins on the brochures and they only appear once or twice a 

month, so its him that has to deal with the tourist's expectations.  

One last photo of the waterfall near the top of the fjord.

A long bus ride on the way back, made worse by the fact that the bus air conditioning packed it in and we're in one of those sealed tourists cans - it just wasn't Bruce the driver's day.  Laura and I were lucky since we were near the front - those at the back must have been really cooking.

On the way back we stopped in Te Annu, where Bruce met another driver with space enough on his bus to let us finish off the trip to Queenstown with air conditioning. 

Why didn't we bike into Milford?  It was a long trip and probably would have taken us 3 days one way.  The way back up the hill to the Homer Tunnel would have been tough.  We knew the weather was good, so we opted for the quick trip.  It's cloudy here in Queenstown today, so it is probably raining in Milford.  A compromise (suggested by Bruce, who cycles a bit) would be to bike in and then catch a bus out.

One more day in Queenstown, and then off again.