Day One I took the long and winding road up to the Milford Sound, with many stops along the way to take pictures. The drive starts out as high mountain brush and quickly changes to lush rainforest as you proceed deeper into the park.
As you drive into the mountains, the rapid ascent of the mountains is astonishing. The rock, carved out by glaciers, is nearly vertical in some locations.
Continuing on to the Milford Sound, I came to the Homer tunnel, a tunnel blasted through the mountain, creating a narrow and dark one lane pass through the mountain. It was incredibly dark and long in there!
 |
| Waiting in line for the light to turn green at Homer Tunnel |
A bit beyond the tunnel I came to the Milford Sound, a waterway that connects out to the Tasman Sea via narrow passageways. Here is the famous Mitre Peak and Milford Sound.
Though it was stunning, there isn't a whole lot to do here at Milford Sound unless you take a cruise around the Sound. And to my dismay, many many buses start arriving around lunch time from Queenstown & Wanaka. And so, I quickly took it all in, and headed back down the road to the Routeburn Track trailhead. It was a quick 1 hour ascent up the easy trail of the Routeburn which afforded me a fantastic 360 degree view of snow capped mountains. Beautiful!
And that was just the end of Day One. Day Two was even better..... I had booked myself on an overnight cruise in the Doubtful Sound, thought by many to be more beautiful than the Milford Sound, and certainly less congested as it is rather involved to get there!
 |
| Boat route across Lake Manapouri, traveling west |
 |
| Bus Route from Lake Manapouri to Doubtful Sound, traveling west |
I boarded a boat in Manapouri with my 70 other shipmates, was taken across Lake Manapouri, and then we got on a bus and had a 45 minute drive on one of the most scenic dirt roads I have ever been on. It was a torrential downpour, which meant the waterfalls were stunning and flowing at full force. Amazing!
 |
| One of AT LEAST 30 waterfalls |
The drive went along and as we went over Wilmot Pass, we were given our first view of the Doubtful Sound.
 |
| View of Doubtful Sound from Wilmot Pass |
We arrived around 2pm and boarded our vessel (similar to the vessel photographed at the Milford Sound), and headed out to explore the different arms of the Doubtful Sound. When we pulled into a quiet cove, the sea kayaks came out and we had a great time kayaking along the shores of the Sound, passing waterfall after waterfall. Thankfully, by now, the rain had stopped and it was turning out to be a gorgeous day.
After coming back off the water for afternoon tea and a snack, we traveled to the opening of the Doubtful Sound, where the Sound meets the Tasman Sea. Here it was sunny and windy, and the waves picked up substantially. It was beautiful to look down the coastline.
After checking out the seals and birds on the small islands, we headed back into the Doubtful Sound, let down the sails, and turned off the motor for some sailing. It was rather beautiful!
After a bit of sailing, the clouds rolled in and the Sound became even more photogenic.
It was really the highlight of my trip thus far. We had a fantastic meal, I slept in a surprisingly comfortable bunk in a quad room, got up the next day, and had a great breakfast before they took us back to the dock to undergo the bus and boat ride all the way back to Manapouri. Amazing.
I rested that afternoon, and in the evening went to the glowworm caves. This consisted of another boat ride, but this time across Lake Te Anau. Here we had a lesson on the glowworms and learned about the origin of the blue glow that they emit. These tiny tiny worms hang from the top of the caves and their digestive track system produces a chemical reaction that leads to the emission of a blue light. The brighter the light, the longer its been since their last meal, and thus the hungrier they are! After our little lesson on the glowworms, we descended into the dimly lit caves entered cavernous rooms with waterfalls, and then took a hand operated boat ride (by pulling along a chain linking walls in the cave) into a very dark portion of the cave where there were hundreds of little blue specks on the walls of the cave - each one a glowworm. I wish they would have allowed photos so I could show you!!
And that brings us to today, Day Four. Today I took a boat ride again across Lake Te Anau, but a different section than was for the glowworms. Here I had a guided one day walk on the very famous Milford Track. The Milford Track is a one-way track that limits the number of through hikers to 40 per day. There are set huts along the way and you can either travel with your pack and stay in shelters, or (much more expensively) you can stay in huts along the way where you sleep in a bed with provided linens and have meals prepared for you (my style of camping!). The Milford Track is such a sought after hike that you have to sign up months to even a year in advance to get your place on it!
Thankfully it is not so hard to get a one day's experience!! With a guide and 3 fellow hikers we did ~8 miles today along the Milford Track. It was surprisingly easy grade and very well maintained through dense temperate rainforest.
And so that is the end of my tour of the South Island. Tomorrow I drive to Invercargill and fly up to Auckland. I spend the following morning touring around Auckland and by late afternoon I board a cruise ship to begin my trek from Auckland, New Zealand to Sydney, Australia via ship. Its unclear to me at this point how easy it will be to post blogs to you, but I will do my best to find a way!
I'll leave you with this sunset from my patio, 9:45pm tonight, overlooking Lake Te Anau:
No comments:
Post a Comment