Wanaka to Milford Sound

Today was a big travel day due to a bit of an adjustment we had to make in the itinerary for Milford Sound, and we were on a strict and tight schedule to make the boat in Milford which are our accommodations for tonight.  The route today took us from Wanaka south to and around Queenstown, then around Lake Wakatipu over to Te Anau and back north to Milford Sound.  If we could do this drive as the crow flies it would take about an hour. But instead it is closer to five.

Once we got north of Te Anau and into Fiordland National Park, the views became some of the most jaw dropping of the trip.  All of us were gazing out the windows and craning our necks to take it in.  We made a few brief stops along the way to capture some of it, including at Mirror Lakes:

Homer Tunnel:

The Chasm:

Some scenery on the drive. To say the cliffs along this drive are sheer would be an understatement:

Here’s a fun fact from the drive - the road from Te Anau to Milford crosses the 45th parallel.  For you Michiganders reading this, you probably know that the 45th parallel in the northern hemisphere runs thru Michigan.  So that means I’ve crossed it on the road in both hemispheres.  :)

We pulled into Milford and up to the boat right on time thanks to some great planning and driving by our guides.  Here’s our home for the next 18 hours or so, the Milford Wanderer:

While we were finding our cabins and getting settled in, the boat pulled out and started cruising the Milford Sound.  It didn’t take long for most of us to make our way on deck.  We didn’t want to miss this:

One of the many great things about exploring Milford Sound on this boat is the opportunity to do some water sports.  Some of our group took a tour on a tender boat out to the Tasman Sea and a few hearty souls went swimming off the boat.  Most of us opted to go kayaking, including me.  I’ve gotta say, I was sitting out on the water in this tiny little kayak, looking down at water so cool, clear and incredibly deep, and up at the magnificent cliffs rising sharply and dramatically out of the water, that I couldn’t help but take a moment or two to just sit there, take it in, and reflect on the fact that this is one of the primary reasons I took this trip in the first place, and definitely one of the coolest things I’m ever going to do.  I’m truly very fortunate to get to do this.

After dinner we anchored on a quiet cove underneath the cliffs and glaciers for the night, watching the stars slowly come out, and did a bit of constellation searching with the Star Walk app on my iPad.  After a bit we abandoned technology to just enjoy nature, and were treated to a display of a fur seal hunting for dinner in the water off the boat, chasing the fish into the lights to blind them, before retiring to our cabins for the night.

Tomorrow: more cruising and kayaking on Milford Sound, then a hike on the Routeburn Track, one of NZ’s “Great Walks”.