This blog will catch you up on our adventures of March 20. But first, a few reflections on New Zealand life. New Zealand life seems good. Granted we have been in small towns or rural areas, and other than Christchurch have not stayed in a big city. Life seems simpler here. We have not seen an Amazon truck since leaving Seattle. Yes, Amazon delivers in New Zealand but everything comes through the New Zealand post or another third party delivery service. Each town has had one or two good sized grocery stores, but there are no Costco’s in sight and not the huge shopping malls. The highest speed limit in the country is 100 km/h or about 62 miles per hour. Life is just a little slower and simpler…and it feels really good. Actually, that sounds like a pretty accurate description of Port Townsend where we lived for ten wonderful years. Needless to say, we are enjoying New Zealand.

Yesterday, March 20, we left Te Anau before sunrise and took a 90 minute drive on the famous road to Milford Sound. Famous because it is, in sections, curvy, narrow, mountainous, with precipitous drops off the edges, and a long, one way tunnel under a huge mountain. But this also means amazing views of fantastic mountain ranges (once the sun comes up.) We arrived while the sun was just rising on the fjord.

 

We boarded our boat for a cruise up the fjord. Fjords are deep gashes carved by glaciers that are then filled with the ocean. Milford Sound is a fjord on the southwest of New Zealand. It is part of Fjordland National Park, New Zealand’s largest national park. Fjordland National Park is bigger than Yosemite and Yellowstone Parks combined. The mountain sides come straight down to the water. They are almost completely vertical. It is amazing that any vegetation can cling to the sides of these mountains, but somehow nature prevails and things grow.

But not everywhere. There are many gashes or complete walls of rock where nothing grows and there is simply hard, striated, rock.

This picture shows another glacial carved valley that empties with a waterfall into Milford Sound. The waterfall is called Stirling Falls and the unseen glacier, way at the top of the valley is the Stirling Glacier. Glacial carved valleys are U-shaped like the one in the picture. If you could empty out Milford Sound it would have the same general shape.

And, of course, there are water falls. Lots of water falls. It is autumn here and it hasn’t rained for a couple days, therefore, some of the falls are pretty small. This area gets 200 days, and over 90’ of rain a year. YES! Ninety feet!!! On rainy days there would be more falls and they would be bigger, but the boat cruise would not be nearly as pleasant. We had a beautiful dry day, but with somewhat smaller falls…and that was just fine. Here are two small falls all coming down next to each other.

Milford Sound opens to the Tasman Sea. As we reach the opening, the wind comes up and the sea gets choppier. This picture is looking north, up the west coast of New Zealand. Our captain explained that if you sailed northwest from here about 1,000 miles, you would hit Australia. We are not completely sure of her geography, but she also said that if you sailed due west, you would eventually wash up on the beaches of Argentina. We will check a globe when we get home. From this point, we turned around and headed back into Milford Sound traveling on the north side of the fjord.

And there were falls.

And more falls. This is Stirling Falls and our travel companions are saying, “We want to go closer! Closer! Closer!”

And so we got closer.

“Closer still! Closer!”

“Stop! Close enough! We’re getting wet!”

 

As we head back to port, the sun is rising on the surrounding mountains.  We saw a few sunbathing and swimming seals along the way.

And there is still another great water fall. This is Bowen Falls.

The sun is now shining on Milford Sound. The sharp peak in the center is called Mitre Peak because it resembles the mitre, or hat, of a bishop.

 

 

Thus, ends our Milford Sound adventure. It was a great day.

As we head back over the mountains, I love this picture because it gives you a puzzle. The road is headed straight for the mountains, but there is no pass, no valley to go through. How can this be? The road goes through the mountain in a tunnel.

Thanks for traveling with us.

Kia ora,

Coe & Janet