Milford Sound

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Milford Sound is one of the highlights of New Zealand, and the only way to see it is by helicopter, or by cruise. It was formed by a glacier, so it should be called a fjord instead of a sound (apparently!), but it is basically a big body of water, surrounded by enormous, lush green mountains, with waterfalls cascading down from above from every direction. Not the most exciting thing I've ever done, but a perfect sample of the country's outstanding natural beauty.

The best thing was the underwater observatory. In only 3 places in the world, there are areas underwater where the sealife of the ocean is replicated inland, as here the seawater is trapped by a layer of freshwater on top. The one here is the most accessible of the three. So we walked down some spiral stairs to find a room with windows all the way round looking out into the depths of the Sound. There were little "gardens" with loads of sealife all over the place. There were sea sponges, black coral (actually looking white due to the colonies of little animals living on it) and loads of fish. Unfortunately no sharks, but they do live there! There was also a giant starfish, the size of your computer screen, eating a mussel. This is done by squashing the mussel up against a rock, or the window it was conveniently stuck on in this case. The starfish has lots of tentacles which slowly (this starfish had already been there 7 hours) open up the mussle. Then the starfish ejects its stomach through its mouth into the mussel. The acids and fluids dissolve the mussel and then the starfish swallows its own stomach again. Loverrrly! Another cool fact is that if you cut off a star fish's leg, it grows another leg, AND from the cut off leg, another star fish grows! Cool, eh!

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