Milford Sound

After my last post we carried on driving towards Te Anau, which has the only road leading to Milford Sound. As we got within 20kms we took a slight detour and headed south to Lake Manapouri to spend the night there in one of the many rest stops along the roads. We woke up early to go and catch the sunrise over the lake with the snowcapped mountains in the background. We're right down in the south of New Zealand now, and it is freezing - I had to de-ice our car before we could drive.

Next stop was Te Anau for a quick break before heading on the 156km road to Milford Sound. The road to Milford is meant to be one of the best roads in the world that takes around 2 hours to drive, but if you stop at every photo opportunity it takes a whole day. We drove about 100kms of it in the first day, obviously stopping to take photos here and there, but unfortunately it was very overcast so the photos were looking quite dull.

Annoyingly, we pulled up at one of the DOC camp sites and went for an hour or so walk to find a waterfall; when we got back and tried to start the car, I realised I had left the lights on and the battery was flat as a pancake. Luckily for us, a German guy called Alex saved our day. I flagged him down as he drove into the campsite and he pulled up next to our van and got the car going again. It was going to get dark soon, so we stayed there for the night with Alex and made a fire.

The next morning another couple turned up to the campsite that had already met Alex a few days earlier so we all went on the same walk I did the day before to find this waterfall again. I didn't take my camera last time so this gave me an opportunity to get some photos. I can imagine that after winter, when all the snow has melted, the waterfall must get huge. Below it, leading down the side of the mountain are tons of boulders and rocks that have torn through the forest to the valley floor.

After lunch, all of us stopped again near Key Summit to take the 3 hour round trip walk. It got a bit overcast again while we were up there, but the view was immense.

Alex and the other couple Chris and Leah, were travelling at a much lower pace as they have a longer in NZ, so we left them to it and headed further toward Milford Sound, stopping at 'The Chasm' to view the near vertical rapids that have carved the rocks into strange shapes.

Last stop for the day, Mildford Sound itself. To get there we had to pass through a tunnel through one of the mountains which was made between the late 1930s and early 1950s. It's only wide enough for a single lane of traffic so is controlled by traffic lights (until 6pm!) and is 1.2kms long. We got down to the bottom of Milford Sound just in time to see the sunset before turning around and heading for Queenstown.