[written about October 29-30, posting later due to lack of Internet access]
I’ve officially run out of adjectives. I don’t have the words to describe the
incredible scenery and experience on Milford Sound. Suffice it to say that our time on Milford
Sound was one of our all-time traveling highlights. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Monday we began our tour to Milford Sound. We started on a bus ride, ended the day on a
boat, and reversed the process Tuesday. I’ll get to more details in a bit, but I
wanted to mention we had an unplanned stop because the road was closed for a
house that was being moved. Yes, it took
all of both lanes….good thing there weren’t any 1-lane bridges on its route.
The bus tour was impressive….an excellent driver/guide,
spectacular scenery, weather that even the tour guide was excited about (sunny,
over 20 degrees C). More mountains than
we could shake a stick at, many of them snow-covered. Not a cloud in the sky. Rivers and lakes ranging from deep blue to
milky green to jade green to grey to aqua to, well, I don’t know enough color
names. Amazing waterfalls. An unplanned meeting with two geocaching friends
in the town where we had lunch. A
wonderful walk across a swinging bridge – Jeff and I each managed “no hands”
one way across – and up a nice river to a beautiful waterfall and
cascades. A chance to see a Kea, the
world’s only alpine parrot. Just about
as perfect as it gets. Lots of pictures, but we know that the pictures don’t
capture the magic and majesty of Fiordland National Park. We even decided to splurge on a plane ride
back – both for the different way to see everything and to return earlier so we
could hit the road earlier.
The road into Milford Sound is an engineering marvel. It was built from about 1935 to 1953, with an
intermission during war. It’s northwest of Queenstown, and it turns out that
the way there is to go South (yes), then West, then North, then West through an
avalanche zone and finally through Homer Tunnel. The tunnel is mostly one-lane with a 10%
grade and goes quite a distance through the mountain. This leads to a series of switchbacks, and
finally arrival at Milford Sound.
Shortly after 4pm we boarded the boat. We traveled down Milford Sound (aka “the
fiord”) for about an hour, until almost reaching the Tasman Sea. If I had
enough adjectives I could describe the steep mountains that reach the water’s
edge and the waterfalls that couldn’t drop straight down because of the wind. And I could provide an accurate picture of
the color of the water with numerous whitecaps.
If only I had the words I could even help you feel the incredible power
of the wind when we went onto the top deck at the boat’s bow….suffice it to say
that Jeff had to put his hat into his pocket and mine tried valiantly but unsuccessfully
to escape. Indeed, as we descended the
stairs from the top deck to the next one down it was hard work to go upwind. And
I should say that we were the only boat on the fiord which itself was quite a
treat (we later learned that during the day there are lots of boats, but we
were on the only overnight boat).
We then had 4 options Monday afternoon: swim, kayak, travel
in the ship’s tender, or remain on board.
I chose kayaking, Jeff remained on board and was my official photographer. We didn’t kayak far, but we were able to get
quite close to the shore, and even saw the bottom of the fiord in a few places. Then the boat was moved to a mooring on a
secluded cove. This was followed by
dinner – assigned seats, and we were with a very nice couple of British
Columbia – then a slide show and our star gazing attempt. The sky was clear, though of course being on
a fiord much of the view in all 360 degrees was blocked by mountains. We were able to find the Southern Cross and a
constellation called Triangulum, but didn’t recognize anything else, even with
the BC couple’s iPad stargazing app.
After a good night’s sleep on the boat, we awoke and had a
nice breakfast. Then back out into
Milford Sound and even into the Tasman Sea.
There were low clouds, but as they started to burn off we could see the
sky with wispy cirrus clouds, and it looked quite likely that the weather would
clear for planes to fly. We got to see
penguins in the wild for the first time, and also seals and dolphins. At one point the boat went extremely close to
a waterfall more than twice the height of Niagara Falls. The announcement was made that the port side
of the boat would get quite wet though the starboard would likely stay dry,
then the comment that “lots of folks on the boat know their starboard from
their port side,” and then conspicuously one member of our party gave the
camera to his wife so it would stay dry while he returned to the port
side. He sadly reported that he didn’t
get all that wet. Again, we were the
only boat out there, quite different from day time when many boats are in the fiord
simultaneously. We were off the boat by
10:00.
Unfortunately, the planes weren’t yet flying, so we ended up
with the original plan of returning by bus. The only other disappointment was
that my GPS may have died….it worked over the weekend but hasn’t wanted to boot
up since Sunday evening regardless of power source (any suggestions would be welcome,
but at least we still have Jeff’s GPS in working order). Anyhow, the bus tour
back to Queenstown was pleasant and included a nice nature walk in an area with
a cache. Somehow we’d very quickly
become jaded and weren’t nearly as impressed with the scenery on the way back.
I’m now pining for the fjords of Chile….having seen one or
more fjords in Alaska, Norway and now New Zealand. Gotta say that the New Zealand
experience of overnighting on a boat was amazing, incredible, spectacular, and
I wish I had better words to describe it.
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