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Published: December 9th 2009
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Scenes on the Milford Road towards Milford Sound. About a 120 kilometer drive from Te Anau to Milford Sound. This is Lake Te Anau which is the second largest lake in New Zealand and the deepest point is 417 meters (about 1,300 feet). It is a glacially carved lake. Beautiful!!!We are about to head south on the South Island to the deepest lake in New Zealand in Fiordland National Park and then continue south to Invercargill at the bottom of the South Island.
We’ll update our blog site again when we reach Dunedin as we are heading back north along the eastern coast of the South Island. We are hoping to get over to Stewart Island at the bottom of New Zealand and see some of the bird life for which it is famous.
12-5-09 - Saturday - We left fairly early from the campground to do a few things in town. One included an overdo haircut for Larry. Rhea needed one but hers would take a bit more time and they could not take her so that cut will have to wait. We then headed north on the Milford Road towards Milford Sound. We have a day tour of Milford Sound on Sunday morning so we wanted to get part of the way there since it is a solid 2 ¼ hour drive from Te Anau to Milford Sound.
The drive is partly along Lake Te Anau for the first 20 minutes,
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Lake Te Anau along the Milford Road to Milford Sound. then into a mix of pasture, low bush and scattered forest. The scenery takes a very dramatic change about 45 minutes from Te Anau. You begin to push deeper into the trees, mountains and rivers/streams of Fiordland National Park. This drive is absolutely stunning and don’t even think about driving fast so let those in a hurry rush on by. We checked out several of the DOC campgrounds along the way. The three campgrounds that were absolutely the most stunning were the ones just south of Lake Gunn and on the west side of Milford Road. The site we stayed at was the last of the three which was situated on the southern edge of Lake. This site left us with only a 45 minute drive from Milford Sound. We were able to get a nice fire going that night, hike on a really great nature walk to and around the southern point of Lake Gunn.
12-6-09 - Sunday morning we awoke to a drizzling rain. We had planned on this partly because we are near Milford Sound that is a temperate rainforest. Yep it rains here a lot so plan on it. So we had all our packup
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Scenes on the Milford Road towards Milford Sound. About a 120 kilometer drive from Te Anau to Milford Sound. gear in the tent in case of a rain. It only took us 15 minutes to breakdown the tent and gear and since everything else had been packed up the night before in preparation for a rain we had no real problems.
The drive to Milford was greatly improved with the rain. Yes you heard me correctly. We liked the rain because if you do not see the last 45 kilometers of the drive into Milford Sound without rain YOU HAVE MISSED A VIEW!! Our heads were turning in every direction as we drove the last 22 kilometers to the Homer Tunnel that takes you into Milford Sound. Waterfalls were streaming off every part of the mountainsides and it was absolutely breathtaking. The photos do not do justice of what you see going into Milford Sound. It is correctly described at the 8th Wonder of the World and this part of the drive should be included with it. If you are not moved to tears with the views you see in this drive you’re not human. We drove up to the Homer Tunnel which in its time of construction in the 1930s was a monstrous undertaking The 1.8 kilometer tunnel
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Scenes on the Milford Road towards Milford Sound. About a 120 kilometer drive from Te Anau to Milford Sound. carries you into the final drive towards Milford Sound. Once departing the tunnel you have 18 more kilometers of driving to Milford. Enjoy the view here as well. Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Did we say this place is incredibly beautiful?
We got on the tour boat Southern Discoveries (Red Boat) - Nature Tour. OK - this is the boat to take. The others tour boats just fly through Milford Sound and get you back to the wharf. Southern Discoveries - Nature Tour excursion gives you a fantastic trip on Milford Sound - about 2 ½ hours. They took time to show us penguins, seals, geology, plants, waterfalls and more. They take their time and give you a true Milford Sound experience. If you go to Milford Sound use this company!
We left Milford Sound with the feeling we had experienced something rare that many people will never have a chance to see. Go see Milford Sound - it should be on your Bucket List!! We took the drive back at the slow pace that we came up. We returned to the same campground in Te Anau about 4:00pm. We dried out our gear, tent and washed clothes in preparation for our overnight trip
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Larry's new hair style after a hair cut in Te Anau. to Doubtful Sound on Monday and Tuesday.
12-7-09 to 12-8-09 - Monday and Tuesday we departed Te Anau and headed south for 22 kilometers to Manapouri. This is the jumping off point to go see Doubtful Sound. We had booked an overnight trip on the Fiordland Navigator that is a Real Journeys tour operated boat. This trip was to this point has now become the highlight of our trip.
You take a boat that holds about 100 people from Manapouri across Lake Manapouri to the western end of the lake where the hydroelectric power station was built back in the 1960s & 1970s. The lake is 190 meters above Doubtful Sound that lies only a few kilometers to the west of the lake. A natural location to construct a hydroelectric facility. You would never know this facility is here as everything is underground except for the control room and some power lines.
We then took a bus over the top of Wilmot Pass where after a kilometer on the other side we saw Doubtful Sound looming in the distance. The total time on the bus was about 45 minutes - the same as for the boat ride across Lake Manapouri.
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Scenes along the Milford Road to Milford Sound. We then loaded onto the Fiordland Navigator, found our room that we shared with two others and then went exploring on the ship.
We spent the entire time on the boat from 1:00pm on Monday to 10:30am on Tuesday. It was a real adventure as we toured Doubtful Sound. Two of the staff have been doing this for numerous years and provided outstanding commentary of what we were seeing all throughout the trip. We went the full 40 kilometers out to the opening of Doubtful Sound at the Tasman Sea. You could see why at 45 degrees Latitude they call this the Roaring 40s and some of the most dangerous waters in the world. It was a real wonder how Captain James Cook adventured here and was able to return 3 different times during the 1770s and 3 years on the ocean each time!! On our trip we were treated to 100 millimeters of rain from about 9:00pm on Monday to 9:00am on Tuesday. If it doesn’t rain, you do not witness the unbelievable number of waterfalls after the storm. People welcomed to get wet for the photo opportunities we were treated to. The captain invited us all into the
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Scenes along the Milford Road to Milford Sound. ships bridge where we got a first-hand feel of the ships navigation and often better views.
As many of my friends know, I’m an opportunist. On this trip I had intentionally carried with me a flash drive along with my laptop. I soon discovered that the staff would allow me to download 3 of their PowerPoint presentations of Doubtful Sound (one they had done for us that night which was Outstanding), and numerous files containing birds and aquatic life in the region. This was actually a real treat as the information and photos on these slides were priceless - at least as far as I am concerned. I’m sure my brother Chuck and his wife Lola will help me identify the birds in these files.
When all said and done, the Doubtful Sound adventure is a slide presentation in of itself. We thought we saw a wonder at Milford Sound - and we did - but now Doubtful Sound moves ahead of Milford Sound on our Great Things Seen and Done on this trip. If you can one day see this place - DO IT!
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Jim Trunzler
non-member comment
Great photos
Larry and Rhea, Thanks for the great photos. I would like to visit that area. I especially liked the photo of Larry and the tree, maybe we could change his name to Ilean! Jim