I caught a bus early on Monday morning for the long (5 hour) drive from Queenstown to Milford Sound. The last 90 minutes of this took us through spectacular valleys and alongside towering walls of rock. The weather was reasonably fine until the bus passed through the Homer Tunnel, which takes the road into the final valley that runs down to Milford Sound. After this point the weather had reverted to its customary rain - however, this did mean that the whole place was alive with waterfalls.
The weather did brighten up a bit, and the cloud thinned a little in time for a 2 hour cruise that I took around Milford Sound. Even though we weren't able to see the tops of the mountains it was easy to get a sense of the scale of the place - it is immense, with huge mountains plunging vertically into the sea. All around were scores of temporary waterfalls bought on by the rain, plus several huger, glacier fed, permanent waterfalls. There were several cruise boats around, which helps to give a sense of perspective (ie makes you realise just how huge the place is!)
The next morning it was still raining, but it brightened up and then stopped raining in the afternoon, just in time for a kayaking trip I went on. Milford Sound looks even more impressive when you are sitting in a tiny kayak looking up at mountains which are several thousand feet tall. At one point we tried to kayak up towards one of the permanent waterfalls - as soon as we started to get close we were literally blown away by amazing force of wind and (very cold) water spray. Very exhilerating!
When I woke up on Wednesday morning, unbelievaby for Milford, there was hardly a cloud in the sky. As the weather was so good I decided to go on another cruise around the fiord, and this time got perfect views of the whole place. Absolutely amazing. To see the photos from Milford click HERE.
To follow these amazing few days at Milford I went on an overnight cruise around Doubtful Sound, which, like Milford Sound, is actually a fiord rather than a true sound. Doubtful Sound has quite a different feel to it - the mountains aren't quite as high or steep, but the fiord is much longer and wider than Milford. The fine weather continued to hold and I had 2 days of sunshine at Doubtful, which is apparently quite a rare occurence.
The cruise followed the full length of the fiord and went out into the Tasman Sea where we saw a seal colony plus some hugely impressive albatrosses gliding above the waves. We also had dolphins surfing the bow wave of the boat on several occassions. In the evening we were given the opportunity to go kayaking, which I did for a while before getting eaten alive by the most voracious sandflies I have yet come across! To wash off all the dead sandflies from my legs, I went for a quick swim. Very quick in fact, as the water temperature is only around 11 degrees centigrade - too cold for me by a long way!
There was an early start on the second day, which allowed us to see a very colourful sunrise, before enjoying an excellent cooked breakfast. Again, we we had dolphins surfing along the front of the boat on the way back to the wharf. Click HERE to see the photos from Doubtful Sound.
Just to show how lucky I had been with the weather, as soon as I got back from the cruise the sky started to cloud over and it was raining by the end of the day! I am now in Invercargill which is right down on the south coast, and am planning to spend the next week travelling along the Catlins coastline to Dunedin.
