Milford Sound is Even More Spectacular
01 December 2022
• Milford Sound, NZ
by Karl Coplan
We drove the seventy miles up the Milford Road early this morning - an alpine valley and pass that would be worth the drive even if the scenic jackpot of Milford Sound were not at the end. We had some laughs as Robin read the description from the tourist brochure and got to the part about how the road would become “narrow and windy,” which she pronounced in a way to imply gusts rather than curves. Terry says she hates puns, but she laughed anyway.
The Milford road becomes curvy indeed as it winds up an ever narrowing glacier-carved valley before crashing headlong into an impenetrable snow capped wall of rock. In a tunnel.
On the other side, the tourist port awaited. We could not possible see all of Milford Sound by kayak in a day, so, yes, we boarded one of the smaller excursion boats to cruise past mile high Mitre Peak and glacier fed Lady Sterling falls. This narrow fjord’s walls are just plain vertical and neck craning high.
The Lady Bowen excursion boat steamed lazily along the very vertical edge of the fjord, stopping just feet from the rock faces to let the passengers soak in the featured sights. Yes, we saw more yellow crested Fiordland penguins, including some hopping on rocks. And yes, we saw fur seals, but those are kind of Ho-hum after all the seals we saw in Flea Bay last week. Not even worth crowding the front of the excursion boat for.
Rain and mists added drama to the short trip out to the Tasman sea, while clearing skies and peeks of sunshine made for stunning views on the way back up to Milford. An added bonus was the underwater we stopped at on the way back.
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