Day 8 - Milford Sound
Saturday, July 11
We’re still not used to waking in the dark with the shorter days of winter here! Our bed & breakfast is across from the lake and there was a cloud inversion over the water so it looked like everything was socked in.
We had a 2 hour drive north to Milford Sound for our boat cruise at 12:45, and our host was confident that we’d have sun once we got driving away from the lake. She was right!
The drive took us through wide open grasslands of the valley floor between the mountains, through beech forests, alongside rivers and lakes, switch-backing on mountainsides and boring through tunnels. All the while enveloped by soaring, jagged peaks on both sides, snow-capped ranges behind these.
And it was cold - and there was frost in places!
And then there were the Kea birds who were swarming the cars at the spot where we were taking pictures!
Arriving at the ferry
We took a 2 hour cruise up the sound on a small boat. Fun fact: Milford Sound is really a fjord. A fjord is a valley carved by glaciers and flooded by the sea. A sound is a valley carved by a river and flooded by ocean water. When Milford discovered the area they did not know the distinction and so is was named and has remained Milford Sound (located in Fjordland National Park!)
We saw some albatross where some seal were feeding on some fish.
The Alpine Fault is the on-land section of the Pacific-Australian tectonic plate boundary and part of the “Ring of Fire.”
As we drove back to Te Anau, we stopped at several scenic viewpoints along the way.
We arrived back to our bed and breakfast just in time for some lovely alpenglow on the mountains across the lake. (Dinner was at an excellent Italian restaurant; no photos though.)
Tomorrow we drive back to Queenstown to meet Bart and Richard and to settle in for our week of skiing!