|
NZ 2015: Sound or Fjord?
posted : Saturday, January 23, 2016
Headed for a day trip to Milford sound the next day.
Technically Milford sound is not a sound but a fjord. At least that's what the people there says. Non-nature ppl like me dun reli care about the difference actually hahaha.
Milford Sound on a sunny day is really breathtaking and beautiful. However the bad news is that it's also the wettest region in NZ where it rains for more than 200 days a year. Though when it rains, the waterfalls appear more spectacular than usual so that's the upside of it.
There's a couple of short walking tracks and hikes over at Milford Sound and for the more adventurous ones, Milford is home to Milford track which takes about 3 days or so to hike. Obviously we are not cut out for that hahaha. So the only real activity we pursued there is the cruise, and we scheduled our day around it.
During the initial stages of our planning we actually intended to stay two nights at Milford. A little bit of research tells us that Milford is pretty ulu with no amenities (at all), only one lodge, and no phone reception hahahah. Which is why general travelers (I.e those who don't reli do those three day hikes) don't actually stay overnight at Milford but cover Milford as a day trip from Te Anau, the nearest town, which is what we did in the end.
Didn't book the cruise beforehand also as we opted to keep that part a bit flexible depending on weather conditions. Anyway there were about 5-6 cruise companies there and our plan is to maybe catch any cruise that departs at about 11/12 ish. So after breakfast, we set off at about 8.30am.
Milford is a two hour drive from Te Anau. But the route via Milford Sound Highway is a scenic one with lots of stopovers so given that our aim is to reach Milford by noon, we decided to cover some of it on our way there. And to nobody's surprise, it was drizzling throughout and made it hard to enjoy the scenery fully.
Mirror Lake. Which wasnt very mirror-y coz it was drizzling.
Knobb's Flat
Rain led to many temporary waterfalls
Reached early at about 11 so went ahead and bought the cruise tickets. Got the Discover More cruise by Southern Discoveries which comes with picnic lunch package and the Underwater Observatory tickets. Then killed some time hanging out at the cafe next to the iSite.
Tickets!
The dock
Boarded the 12.15pm cruise. Pictures do the talking. 
Massive waterfall due to rain. That is supposedly an advantage of visiting Milford on a rainy day.
Yep, can't see much.
The picnic lunch! Quite a spread.
Headed out to Tasman Sea for a bit of whale watching. And apparently we were in luck, coz we did see one!
Also passed by seal colony.
Guides getting volunteers to fill up glasses with water from the waterfall, and pass around for all guests to try.
Dropped by the Underwater Observatory! Can't remember/wasn't too interested in the marine life details. Actually more interested when they were describing how they built the observatory, how they transported the materials given the constraint called Homer Tunnel #engineerlife
The stone-faced Sam recovering from a bout of sea-sickness which was pretty fine until she went down the observatory ahahaha.
Left at about 3 and covered the rest of the attractions on our way back to Te Anau, and now that weather has cleared up a bit, revisited places like Mirror Lake hahah. Chris was getting a bit annoyed with the multiple stopovers though. 
Walked up a short track to get a better view (?) of Milford.
Random bridge
The Chasm
Passing through the Homer Tunnel again on our way back and this time we remembered to take a time lapse video
Lake Gunn
Revisiting Knobb's Flat which looked better. Slightly.
Stopping by a random jetty. Hahaha can't remember all the names.
First sighting of llamas!
Off to the supermarket and got stuff for another microwave-friendly dinner haha. And then comes the exciting part - laundry LOLOL. Managed to exchange coins before the reception closes, and they have this industrial-type washers and dryers for $3 and $4 per cycle respectively. Also managed to squeeze in another few rounds of futsal in the games room 
Sam and I were like, oh, there's rice in this, let's get this hahaha.
Sides of fish fillets and leftover fries from yesterday lol..
Futsal game, time lapse mode.
Off to Queenstown next!
|
