Milford Sound

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And then there were three! Chris's first full day in NZ and we made him get up at 5.30am...don't feel too sorry for him, he did go to bed at 8,00pm last night! Luckily casanova didn't come back last night so we all slept well!

A long old coach journey again this morning. It felt really weird though as it's the first one where we haven't had to take our big backpacks with us so I felt like I'd forgotten something. Because of the mountains there are only certain routes you can take to get places so to get to Milford Sound we headed doen towards Te Anau. There isn't much there apart from glow worm caves and Lake Te Anau which is the second largest lake in NZ.

The route from Te Anau to Milford is the most scenic routes you can imagine. It has much more of a rainforest feel than the east coast. We stopped at the mirror lakes and then a little further on at cascade creek. It definately made the journey seem a lot quicker! We also had chance to do Chasm walk which is where the Cleddau river flows through eroded rocks and into a waterfall. Its all surrounded by tropical trees and unfortunately for us...lots of rain!

Milford Sound isn't actually a sound, it's a fiord. A sound is where the rocks have been eroded and carved by water movements and a fiord is where glaciers have carved the rocks. Apparently you can tell if it has been formed by a glacier if it has a 'u' shaped bed...interesting stuff!

The weather wasn't fantastic today so it was a bit disappointing. It was raining a lot and very misty so it didn't quite look like those post cards some of you may have seen with the reflection of the mountains in the water! It's not too surprising though as the area does get aroung 6m of rain a year! One good thing is that Milford Sound only has two permanent waterfalls, the highest of which being Bowen falls, so when it rains hundreds of small waterfalls appear. So it's actually a bonus if it rains, you just have to be prepared to get very wet on the top deck of the boat!

The boat went right up to one of the semi-perminent waterfalls (which last about 3-4 days depending on the amount of rain) at one point and Chris and I got soaked! Lisa was downstairs undercover looking after our cups of tea, she'd had enough of the cold and rain! Although the weather wasn't great we had a brilliant day and it was great to see Milford Sound as it's one of the most visited places in the south island.

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Photos

Bowen Falls
The highest, permanent waterfall that flows into the sound.

Milford Sound Itself!
Even with the rain and mist it still looks amazing!