The Land of a Thousand Waterfalls -- Milford Sound & Fiordland National Park

Sunday November 20, 2011
Note -- sorry we haven't been able to post for several days. We have been in remote areas and on boats out int the sounds. We will catch up!

Rain,rain everywhere. We got up to rain in the morning & it rained all the way to Milford Sound. It rained at Milford Sound. It rained on the overnight cruise. It was all good. The scenery on the world famous Milford Road was spectacular. It started out with a scenic ride alongside Lake Te Anau, a very big lake ringed by towering mountains. There were lots of low hanging clouds so the visibility was not always the greatest. In fact we probably missed a lot of great mountain shots. There were still fields of sheep, deer & cattle looking very post card like. As we got closer to Milford Sound (BTW, it's not really a sound as it was formed by glaciers rather than river erosion) we passed by various sights that just didn't look all that inviting as it was continuously raining. We did take a side road to Gunn's Camp Site & Museum. It was recreated with the huts & various parts of the camps manned by the workers responsible for hand digging the tunnel thru to Homer. It is amazing to think they dug a 40' diameter tunnel that is 2.18KM long thru solid rock just using picks & shovels. We pulled into the parking lot & Tracy found the owner wandering around the property & he let us roam thru the one room museum. It is named after Davy Gunn, a legend that settled in the area in the 1930's. He died attempting to cross a rushing river while carrying a 12 year old boy with him on the back of a horse. We got back on the Milford Road & stopped at several pullouts to try & see the surrounding mountains. Sometimes we could see them & sometimes not. At each of the pullouts we were accosted by the only Alpine parrot into the world, the Kea. They would hop on the car top & rear view mirror looking for handouts. There are signs urging people not to feed them. They are very aggressive & try to sneak into your car if you're not careful. What we did see a lot of were all the waterfalls, small ones, long ones, thunderous ones. We would turn a corner & there would be up to 50 on a mountainside from all the rain. It was stunning. We finally passed thru the Homer tunnel & made our way to Milford Sound where we had a 4:30 cruise on the Milford Wanderer to catch. But first we sat in the car in the rain & drank a half bottle of Bald Hills Rose by swigging it out of the bottle as we didn't have any glasses. They told us we could not bring our own wine on the cruise so naturally Tracy shoved a bottle of '09 Terrace Edge Syrah from Nelson in my overnight bag. Only 15 people boarded for the trip. They gave us some very good minestrone soup to make sure we were warmed up as the boat left the dock. We motored our way to Harrison Cove about 10KM thru the fjords towards the Tasman Sea. We saw many more waterfalls cascading down the sheer walls of the fjords. They then sent us out onto the water. Some people choose kayaks including Tracy. Vic choose the luxury of tender to search for seals, dolphins & penguins. Of course it rained the whole time. We did see several seals & maybe a penguin or two. Back on the boat we waited for the kayakers to return. Tracy did a neat little backup maneuver with the kayak that had the crew members shaking their heads. We dried off & sat down to a very nice dinner of bacon wrapped blue cod w/ accompanying veggies & salad. Of course we sneaked down to the room for a few quick sips, actually more like gulps of Syrah. Soon it was time for bed although Tracy did trade some funny stories & jokes w/ a few of our fellow travelers. It turns out that the naturalist on board traps the bush tail possum when he's not on the boat. He told us he trapped about 20/day & almost 600 under the gondola in Queenstown alone. They do appear to be a problem w/ no natural enemies. We had an early departure in the morning so we hit rack early.