Milford Sound

There are galleries with a total of images on this page. More info

Each block of images separated by text is a separate gallery. If you click or tap an image, you will see a larger version of that image, and you can then use arrows, or click left and right to see rest of large images in that gallery, but not the rest of images on this page. You will need to click on an image in that gallery to see larger versions.

While consuming my fill of fish and chips in Wanaka, I plotted my next trip. Hiking Milford Sound was not an option, as that great walk is booked way ahead of time. But going to the sound seemed like a reasonable idea. I was unsure of what to do, but the car rental earlier was such as good thing to do, I took same course of action. So, back to Queenstown by bus to get a car. From Queenstown, Milford Sound is actually a bit north and west, but to get there requires driving a couple of hours south to Te Anua, and then going north to get to the sound. Again, I was surprised with how little traffic there was. Two land roads, thru beautiful and varied terrain. The only exception was the road from Te Anua to Milford Sound. There are a lot of full size buses on this two lane, no shoulder road. And buses traveled faster than I was willing to go, not because I was looking around, although maybe that was part of it, but these buses were flying down the road.

Anyway, I was trying to struggling to come up with a hike that I could do. Either I could not book a hut, or the trip was too far, blah blah blah. I ended up camping at this huge drive in campsite. It was not crowded and it rained a bunch, but that place must be a zoo in the high season. The next morning I drove all the way to Milford Sound, it was a beautiful drive, there were a bunch of places to stop and view mountains, take pics. During one of these stops was when I first saw the Kea, the worlds only alpine parrot. The first one I saw was chewing on the rubber around a car window. That was fun.

There is a big tunnel thru the mountain and you emerge at the top of the Milford sound valley. The tunnel was amazing. It is one way, rough hewn, not at all like what we you normally think of tunnels should look like.

But the most amazing part was emerging from this tunnel. The head of the valley is 270 degrees of granite walls with water coming down all over the place. Stunning. A short way down from the valley head there was a little park and short hike to take. It was thru what I would describe as temperate rainforest, and the iconic spot was a spot where the water has carved the rock into the curved shapes. It was hard to see down, but a huge amount of water going thru narrow rocks.

I drove to the end of the road, or as far as I could go, and parked in a far lot and jumped on a bus to get down to the water. It is a funny place. There are lots of people, a surprising amount of parking in a place with very little flat space, and a lot of buses. There is almost nothing there in way of infrastructure. There is a big building where you book a ferry tour. There are 5 or 6 ferry companies, and ferries leaving regularly. But beyond that, one little place that I think was maybe a hotel, and accommodations for the people who work there. The nearest other place was 2 hours away.

I wasn’t planning on it, as I did not think about it ahead of time, but getting on a ferry did not require planning ahead. The morning was beautiful, and when I started ferry trip is was sunny, but the sun did not last, as is normal. But it was an enjoyable ride. They drive the boat right up to within 20 feet of the rock in places. There were a couple of excellent hanging valleys and waterfalls. I enjoyed looking up at the ridges and thinking how possible it is to hike into those areas. Hard to call them remote, but definitely inaccessible.

After my ferry ride, I had to head back to Te Anua, I made side trip to a trail down a long gravel road that I had thought about hiking, but it was raining pretty hard and I did not have any real plans. The next morning in Te Anua I visited ranger station trying to plan a trip. I was getting to the end of my trip, and I think I was not feeling up for a multi day outing, and especially not in rainy weather. I could have booked the Kepler Track, but wasn’t sure the cost was worth it. (It would have been), but a ranger suggested I do a day hike on the Kepler Track. Hike out and back. That seemed like a great idea.