February 24-25: Milford Sound , the road and the fjord

 Monday, Feb 24, 2025. Woke up to lovely view of Lake Te Anau from our RV. After oatmeal and plum breakfast, we hit the road to Milford Sound, with a quick stop at the visitor’s center for a guide to walks along the road. Got our audio tour set up and enjoyed the background it provided along the route.

 

Stop 1 was Lake Mistletoe.  Nice pseudo bracken fern over my head.

Stop 2:  Mirror Lakes.  Mountains getting crazy steep and jagged.  Brown scaup ducks on lakes.

Stop 3:  Cascade Creek to Gunn Lake:  huge red beech forest with tons of moss. 

Another giant!

Not the beech trees we learned about in Nova Scotia!

Learned about three types of beech:  silver (serrated leaves), mountain (pointed leaves) and red (with thin pliable rounded jaggedy leaves)---all the leaves are tiny and they are evergreen.

 

Stop 4:  Hollyford Road to Lake Marian hike

---short walk up endlessly cascading river.

 New sword fern style fern that is extra frilly.

Not like anything in our forests!

Stop 5:  Monkey Creek, with lofty rocky peaks on all sides—great panorama.  One Weka.

Then Homer Tunnel-the black speck in the above photo is the tunnel and one sees how small it is compared with the giant rock saddle..  Much crazier than expected.  Red/green light controls to ensure traffic is in one direction only, although it used to have 2 way traffic.  

Narrow, dimly lit, steeply descending, and primitive. 

 

Cuts right through a huge saddle of rock that keeps one valley separated from the coastal valley. Views dramatic on both sides.

Stop 6:  The Chasm. Bridge was washed away in 2020 (3 meters of rain in 3 days) so best views and full trail not accessible.

 

Stop 7:  Milford Sound Lodge:  expensive but elegant resort with nicest campsites yet encountered and a lovely lounge area and fancy bathrooms.(This is a free shower room)

 

Drove closer to the sound, parked and walked the 20 minutes to where we could see the fjord, cruise ship harbor, and café. Saw more orchids in bloom. 

 

The clouds are moving in but most of the peaks are still visible. The water is wavy and tomorrow is looking ominous for rain during morning kayak tour of sound.

 

Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Had a hard time sleeping through the torrential rains all night.  Also had nightmares from my Maori novel’s violence.  Got up at 7:00 to be ready for kayaking trip at 8:00, although we thought it would be cancelled due to wind gusts if not the rain.  No emails from company so called them and were told to turn up at the meeting place by the shore.Drove down there before 8:00 and were told that it was too windy and it was cancelled. Had time to admire the myriad of waterfalls that had formed in the night cascading down all the mountain/cliff sides.

 

 

Decided to regroup and booked passage on the water taxi for 10:30, when the rain was supposed to start subsiding. Napped a bit until taxi time and packed hiking backpacks, switched gears from boating, and took the 5 minute water taxi to Sand Fly Point, across the bay.   

We were soon hiking along a wide gravel trail, the end (or start) of the famous Milford Track, a 4 day Track complete with huts and water taxis at both ends.  

We just wanted to experience the trail but ended up pushing our capacity by hiking 5.5 km (3.3 mi) to Giant Gate falls,

 best viewed from a suspension bridge over the river it falls into. 

                                                                     

We were forced to walk through flowing water on the trail and cross a creek that went over our boots, so our feet were wet for the rest of the hike. 

Along the way we were first greeted by a lush rain forest of tree ferns, unknown trees, and tons of mosses, ferns, and lichens.  However, the rain miraculously stopped when we got off the taxi and we watched the skies gradually clear, revealing the cliffs and waterfalls even better. 

 

We walked along a rushing river in flood stage that was deafeningly loud.

 

Then we broke into an opening where the cliffs above us revealed multiple mile high waterfalls and the lake was to our other side. 

We felt so fortunate that we were forced into this option and we had a spectacular hike with no rain!

 

 

We had to hurry along the way back, taxing our feet and tiring our legs, but we made it to the water taxi by 2:15 and thus back to mainland in time to change our clothing, pry off out wet boots, and regroup for our sightseeing boat. 

The pathway back to the boat launch and town.

The sightseeing cruise made its way along the jaggedy steep mountains surrounding the fjord they call Milford Sound, 

cruising past temporary waterfalls that were diminishing with the lack or rain, and stopping at more permanent falls with names, to spray the people outside on the front and back of the boat!  

Decent weather enabled us to be on deck to look up at the scenery.

We pulled along two rocky promontories with fur seals pulled up 

..

.....and one with two fjordland penguins posing for us on the rocks. They have silly tufts over their eyes!  Cruise lasted from 4-6 pm.

Back at our luxury campsite we ate dinner, read outside in our camp chairs while we could still see the mountains and the remaining waterfalls, and then fled from the sand flies. Both had hot showers that actually worked and read inside in the lounge to take advantage of our fancy campground amenities!