Seals, Dolphins and Japanese Tourists

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The Kayaking yesterday was great, but the self powered nature of the day meant that much of Milford Sound remained unexplored. I decided to compensate for this by taking a cruise of the Sound to make sure that I saw it all.

I was a little dissapointed to see it was a clear and sunny day. For once I had hoped for rainstorms. Apparantly during heavy rain the walls of the sound are covered in cascading waterfalls. Not to worry - sunshine is nothing to complain about!

The first great sight of the day was a pod of Bottlenosed Dolphins. Having first watched them swim past, a number turned round and started swimming under the bow of our ship. First one came, then two and before long I could not tell how many Dolphins were off the bow. The swam just under the surface of the water jumping out from time to time. They hardly seemed to be putting any effort at all into keeping up, and I was amazed they never contacted with the boat!

We continued along the south side of the Sound before reaching the Tasman sea, and then we turned round and headed back in. It became apparant why Milford Sound had remained undiscovered for so long - the entrance really is hard to spot. It was actually discovered by chance, when a sailor (from Milford Haven) was blown into the Sound in a storm.

We made our way back along the north side of the Sound, under the great hulks of the Elephant and the Lion. It was here that we saw our next set of wildlife - about half a dozen seals lounging on a rock. All credit is due to our skipper - he managed to get the boat in really close to the rocks so we could see the seals. It was great - on one side was the seals while on the other side I could see the dolphins from earlier playing around and jumping out of the water.

Soon after the seals I left the cruise to explore the Milford Deep observatory. Milfords comination of tanin stained fresh water layer above the salt water (from the heavy rainfall), sheltered location and low silt levels mean that it harbours life not normally found in such shallow waters - such as Black Coral. The observatory floats and gives a viewing platform about 10m under the water to enable the un-SCUBAd person to see the underwater life.

I caught a lift back to Milford with one of the larger cruise ships - which appeared to be full to the brim with Japanese tourists. It was a far cry from the relatively intimate cruise I had been on in the morning. A triple decker boat - cafes, photograph sales and pre recorded commentary made me really glad I had chosen the morning cruise I did.

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