Drive to Milford Sound

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May 15th 2012

Published: May 15th 2012

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Maranade

Te Anau

Morning

As we had hoped, the day of our trip to Milford Sound dawned fine but very cold. During the night it had rained a little and almost snowed on the mountain across the lake but when we peeped out the curtains of Crowded House before dawn I could see stars and felt quite excited.

The "Go Milford" mini bus turned up on time out the front of the Top 10 and we tore ourselves away from the fire in the reception office and jumped on board. Our driver, Rhys (or Reece?) is a veteran of 17 years driving from Te Anau to Milford Sound and soon had us relaxed and enjoying the drive.

The drive begins at 200m above sea level in Te Anau town and climbs up to 940m at the Homer Tunnel where you then descend very steeply down to sea level (naturally!) at Milford Sound. You go through some of the most rugged and stunning mountains with fantastic views of snow covered mountains and gorges.

I need to add here that the drive from the Te Anau townsite where we are camped to the boat at Milford Sound takes about 2 hours. The road is

Our bus

"Go Milford"

a scenic delight and can be quite dangerous thru the mountains and slippery wet hairpin bends and we were not prepared to take the Kea and risk any mishaps. Oh sure! many campervans do go up there and some (a lot!) are much bigger than our little bus but, hey, we want to sit back and enjoy the scenery and take pics so why spoil the day with someone (me!) doing all the driving and missing out. We heard endless stories of campers that came to grief....so.... that's 4 hours driving I don't have to do. End of story.

On the way up R (our driver) gave us a very interesting comentary on the area and made regular stops at scenic spots so we could get out, take pics and have a toilet break. He was great without being OTT as some tour drivers can be. Just spoke enough to keep us interested and in awe of the scenes. As he told us, every trip is different with the weather changing and snow and cloud formations moving around every hour or so. Some dasys they have to cancel the trip when the road becomes either snowbound or to dangerous.

on route

More on this next blog.

Some of the "hairy" sections of the road thru the mountain tops and down steep bends with sheer drops made me glad of the decision to leave C.H. at home. One of the highlights was going thru the Homer Tunnel which is at the "top" of the journey about 940 meters above sea level and was hewn thru the mountain in the early 1900's with pick ax and dynamite. Incredible! It is now controlled by traffic lights as it is one way!

Because the photos I intend to attach to this blog are so many I will just devote this post to the drive up and back and make the next post solely devoted to the boat trip on the Sound with the related pics.

Hope you enjoy the photos, they are only a random selection of dozens and can't put them all on. won't bother too much with captions, you can work it out.

See you tomorrow on the Sound

A&M

Additional photos below

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