Day trip to Milford
01 February 2015 | Milford Sound
Penny
Trip to Milford Sound from Queenstown
An early start as bus collected us at 07.00.h. As usual sleepless night worrying if I would wake up in time. Luckily it was dry (although it had rained heavily last night) so did not get soaked waiting for bus. We crossed the Kawarau Bridge, built as a dam to allow miners to recover gold from the riverbed, it took many years to build but when completed the downstream rivers (Shotover and Arrow) reversed their flow and refilled the riverbed. It has been very useful as a road bridge though. The route continued along the bank of Lake Wakatipu, which is New Zealands longest lake, also an accident black spot. Scenery changed from steep sided valleys to rolling farmland with mainly dairying. The large wind farm on Mount White can power the whole of Southland at full capacity. Mossburn the deer capital of NZ and also location for some of the 'Lord of the Rings' film sets. We had a short stop at Te Anau which is on the banks of NZ's 2nd largest lake. Glad we had decided against staying at Te Anau as it did not seem to have much to offer and we would have had to retrace our steps to get to Invercargill.
Being Sunday most of the shops were shut and we were soon moving on along the lakeshore and into the Eglington Valley where we were able to take photos. We also stopped at the Mirror Lakes where you get perfect reflections of Earl Mountains, but by this time we had torrential rain so very little light let alone reflections. I do not seem destined to get these perfect shots! Eglington Moutains were the Misty Mountains in 'Lord of the Rings'. Here we were able to see the Kea Parrots, they are very mischievous and will destroy windscreen wipers and remove the rubber seals from around windows. The road climbed steadily to the highest point at the Homer Tunnel. The tunnel took 20 years to build and is 1.2kms long and was built by hand. We emerged from the tunnel to a spectacular view of the road descending through the bush of the Cleddau Valley. We stopped again at the Chasm where there was a series or waterfalls and deep chasms Fiordland is one of the last great wildernesses and being raised up in a coach gave us a chance to see so much more during the journey as there are limited safe stopping places. The road is fully sealed and quite wide so it surprised us that there was a bad accident record along the route. Our driver, also a volunteer firefighter was on call last night so one wondered about his fitness to drive as he had 3 callouts last night, but he gave an excellent commentary and got us there and back safely. Rainfall is 7m and I can well believe it, I think half of it must have fallen while we were there. They tell you that it is at its best in the rain but I think I would have preferred a bit of sun! Although I took photos there are few that do justice to the magnificence of the scenery because of poor visibility and rain on the lens. Sheer granite cliffs towered around us and disappeared up into the clouds and the entrance dominated by Mitre Peak. It does not really look like one but the Victorians were anxious to replace its Maori name 'Rahotu' which translates as 'member of upstanding masculinity' (which it does not look like either). Massive waterfalls all around but apparently most of them disappear after the rain, although it is difficult to believe with the level of annual rainfall that it ever stops. Fairy Falls, Bowen Falls and Stirling Falls were the most dramatic, the boat went right in close to one of them so that the water was cascading over the bows.
It was a long but enjoyable day made longer because a major accident blocked the Milford Road (only exit from the Fjord)