Milford Sound

I didn’t do my usual daily post last night as I was extremely disappointed to get back from a day trip to Milford Sound and find that there was not one image from the day on my camera’s memory card. I had taken a couple of hundred photos during the day and this is one of the most beautiful parts of New Zealand.

I suspect that the either the memory card is faulty or that a new version of my geo-tagging software is deleting images rather than tagging them. In any case, I have swapped it out to a new card and after a short test around our hotel, it seems to be working properly.

Rather than publish a post without any illustrations I have’ borrowed’ a small number of photos from various web sites to illustrate my story of the day.

Milford Sound is a fiord known for the towering Mitre Peak, plus rainforests and waterfalls like Bowen falls, which plummet down its sheer sides. The fiord is home to fur seal colonies, penguins and dolphins. To reach Milford, you travel along Highway 94, for about 117 kilometres from Te Anau. The trip takes around two hours but with all our photo stops it took us well over three hours.

About thirty kilometres along the way, you pass the enormous Te Anau Downs Sheep station. It serves as a gateway to this area’s superb scenery. The striking contrast of lush green farmland against the backdrop of high mountains and tranquil lakes creates a picturesque setting perfect for photography. The property is nearly 9000 hectares (90 square kilometres) in size and carry’s around 16,000 sheep. It has been owned by the same family since 1925.

For nostalgia, I once took a photo similar to this of the jetty at Te Anau Downs from where you take the boat up the lake to Glade Hut at the start of the Milford Track. I have done this spectacular four walk twice. It’s actually a soft form of hiking – you stay in huts that have bunks with mattresses, cook on a stove and have flushing toilets. You still have to carry everything but the scenery is beautiful.

The next part of the drive is a long distance over the flats of the Eglinton River. These are reached just after entering Fiordland National Park. The valley was carved out by glaciers thousands of years ago. Today, steep rocky mountains covered in native beech forest line the valley. The flat floor of the valley is covered in eye-catching golden tussock grass. 

The Milford Road runs through the valley alongside the shallow Eglinton River. This is one of only a few road-accessible valleys in the whole of Fiordland National Park. Within the valley you’ll also find the famous Mirror Lakes and Knobs Flat. There are several dozen good photo locations along the road.

Just before the Milford Road begins its descent through the Cleddau Valley into Milford Sound, it passes through the Homer Tunnel, a 1.2km-long tunnel through solid rock. Before the tunnel opened in 1954 there was no road access to Milford Sound.

The tunnel was started in 1935 during the Great Depression as a way of creating employment. At first a team of just five men worked with pickaxes to carve away at the rock. Over the years the numbers grew, with the workers living in a large camp on nearby Knobs Flat. The men worked in very tough conditions, often in extremely cold and windy weather, constantly being attacked by the infamous midges / sandflies of the south.

After exiting the tunnel, there are some splendid views across the Cleddau Valley. The road then descends through a variety of steep winding turns down into Milford Sound.

We have noticed some changes from previous trips.

Traffic through the tunnel is now regulated by traffic lights. In the past, half of each hour was determined for traffic in one direction and then the other in the second half.

There is now a large parking area at Milford with a fee of$10 per day. There is also a localised mobile phone connection.

There are some more defined tracks and board walks around the bay. One of them takes you to a good spot to see Bowen Falls.

This has been one of the days that I was really looking forward to. I just hope that I may be able to recover some of my photos with some software that I have after e return home.