Milford Sound is 70 km away from Queenstown as the crow flies, but you actually have to drive around the Mount Aspiring National Park to get there. The drive ends up being 294 km one way, taking about 5 hours. Nevertheless, the drive was incredibly beautiful. It starts on the Devil's Staircase, a road that winds along the base of the Remarkables Mountain Range right along side Lake Wakatipu with Mount Aspiring National Park on the opposite bank. Devil's Staircase was especially beautiful on the return trip in the evening when the sun was setting, casting spectacular colors of pink and purple on the mountains that reflected in the lake's deep blue water.
After Lake Wakatipu, you drive through the Southland, which is New Zealand's largest sheep country. Heaps and heaps of sheep! While Morino wool is still the major product from this region, in the last ten years farmers have been forced to diversify as a means of survival. While there used to be 80 million sheep in this region, now there are 40 million (which is still a lot!). Farmers are now using some of their sheep for wool and some for lamb meet, while also raising cattle and deer. (Fun fact: the bat is NZ's only native mammal. All the cows, sheep, deer, etc. were introduced after the discovery of the Islands by Europeans).
Now about the deer... they were brought to NZ and released as wild animals in the 1860s. Now they are domesticated and bred for their meat. It's strange to see deer out in the open, grazing in herds in the middle of a field. Aren't they supposed to be hiding in the trees?
Next you drive by Lake Manapouri, which is just outside of Te Anau. Lake Manapouri is the largest hydroelectric system in New Zealand, and one of the most impressive in the southern hemisphere. This lake also allows day hikers to access Doubtful Sound (I'm curious as to the story behind this name, and whether or not Doubtful Sound is actually a sound).
Then we stopped in Te Anau, built right along side Lake Te Anau. At 440 meters deeps and 400 km of shoreline, Lake Te Anau is the largest lake in the South Island and the second largest lake in NZ. Though it's one of the biggest,, it wasn't as impressive as Lake Wakatipu in terms of the scenery and surrounding mountains (but I might be biased, Lake Wakatipu is definitely my favorite glacier lake in New Zealand because of the color of the water, the mountains surrounding it, the gorgeous sunsets, and the city of Queenstown).
After Te Anau, you embark on the famous road to Milford Sound. Construction on this road began in 1929 when NZ was badly affected by the great depression. The decision to build the road was made in order to provide jobs to hundreds of New Zealanders. In fact, the road was built by hand with pick axes, shovels, and wheelbarrows! No wonder it took over twenty years to complete! It didn't help that the workers (by hand) had to dig a tunnel through a mountain side. This single-lane tunnel is 1200 meters long and slants downhill (uphill on the way back). Traffic flow through the tunnel is controlled by signal lights, and there are tarps on the ceiling of the tunnel that redirect the unexpected underwater rivers. Crazy! The road to Milford Sound officially opened in 1954, and it is still the steepest main road in New Zealand. Many thanks to all of the workers for providing us access to such a magnificent area!
When it rains, it is not uncommon for this fiordland to get one inch of rain fall every hour! The fiordland gets an average of 7 meters of rain a year, that's over 20 feet! All of this rain makes the rivers swell up and down like and yo yo, and it's also the reason why there are no human settlements in this area. The fiordland has been experiencing heaps of rain right now from the tail of Cyclone Yasi (the one that hit Cairns in northern Australia last week). Luckily, the weather was dry and sunny when we made the drive (great for views and pictures!), and the rain from the night before had created awesome and full waterfalls that poured from the mountain sides! What a treat! These waterfalls are very sensitive to the rainfall and fluctuate often. For example, on the drive back from Milford Sound about four hours later, many of the waterfalls had dried up.
We arrived to Milford Sound in a rare sunshine and blue sky, with the 1692 meter-high Mitre Peak rising dead ahead. We took a cruise along the sound, opening up into to Tasman Sea. During the cruise, we saw the cliffs and waterfalls up close, even getting a chance to get soaked by the mist coming from the waterfalls. We even saw some cute fur seals on sleeping on the rocks! Due to the high volume of recent rainfall, the water in the Sound did not look its typical blue. The water appeared brown because there was currently 7 meters of fresh water on top of the salt water. Interesting.
Overall, I really enjoyed this trip, but I left yearning for more time there. Since we took a bus, it was a nice break from all of the driving that we had been doing. But because we were on a bus, we couldn't stop at the viewpoints and nature walks along the way. From a bus it is also difficult to snap pictures of the incredible scenery at every turn. Literally every time you turn a corner on the road there are new and exciting views! If I get the chance to visit Milford again, I will do the hikes to Eglinton Valley, Cascade Creek, Key Summit, Humbolt Falls, and the Chasm Walk, and I would pull over at the lookouts for Pyramid Peak and the Mirror Lakes.
For me, the best part about Milford Sound was that the landscape is completely untouched and undisturbed. Apart from the narrow road, no human has walked through these mountains, climbed the cliffs, trod on the soil. We were driving and boating through a magnificent world of untouched beauty. It was gorgeous!
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