Milford Sound

Yesterday Eoin and I took a trip out to Fiordland National Park, hopped on a boat, and cruised around Milford Sound for a little over 2 hours. We weren't sure how the trip would go, because as we left Queenstown at 9 AM it was pouring rain. However, when we got to Te Anau (about 2 hours and 15 minutes from the sound) it was clearing up. It turned out to be quite a beautiful drive in the sunshine. We were in the rain forest and could see mountains covered in waterfalls all around us. Most of the waterfalls were thin but some were very big, and almost every one of them found their way to the roadside. There were drainage ways for the water that flows off the mountains along the roads and in some spots the plants along the cliffs on the road were "raining" on our car.

We got to the Milford Sound visitor center around 3 PM and waited for our boat to dock. Our cruise left at 3:45 and our boat was one of the smaller ones in the sound. This is a good thing because on the smaller boats you can go close to waterfalls, vegetation and animals. It was also good because there were not a lot of people on the boat so there was plenty of room to walk around, stand outside or find a nice warm place to sit once the rain started pouring down. Yep, our rainy day- turned beautiful day became a rainy day again. The rain held out until the last half hour of the cruise, so it actually wasn't TOO bad.

Milford Sound is actually a fiord, but when the English settlers arrived here in the 1880's there wasn't an English word for "fiord", there still isn't (that I know of). A fiord is made by glaciers and happens when a glacier carves out a "U" shape in the rocks/mountains. A sound is created by rivers, and carves out a "V" shape in the rocks/mountains.

Here is evidence that Milford Sound is actually a fiord:

Notice the "U" shape between the two hills? That's a fiord!

Another part of our cruise on the sound was getting close to the wildlife. Sometimes the crew spots (and points out) dolphins and penguins, but we didn't have any luck in seeing them. We did, however, see our millionth colony of fur seals! And they were doing what they mostly do when we see them, lounging around doing nothing exciting at all.

See for yourself:

Another highlight of our trip, that isn't offered on any of the large boats, was that we got to drink fresh glacial water! Two poor souls got suckered in to standing at the bow of the boat (holding trays of cups) and collect water from a waterfall. They got completely drenched, and we all got to laugh at their expense but later on the captain got us all back...that comes later...anyway, fresh glacial waterfall water is pretty good. It's full of minerals and stuff, and oh...it's yellow.

You can't see it in this picture, but I promise you it was yellow water. It is yellow from the roots of all the trees it meets on the way down the mountain.

So after we drank some yellow water, the captain informed us we were all going to get soaked. I, being somewhat smart, ran inside. Not Eoin. He stayed right out in front and got completely drenched by one of the larger waterfalls in the sound. He seemed to enjoy it, so that's good, but I stayed nice and dry.

Even though it was a bit windy and rainy, it was a great time and a lot of fun. The waterfalls were really cool, and the scenery wasn't half bad either :)

Until next time.....