Day 9 – Milford Sound
You can’t visit the south island of New Zealand and fail to visit Milford Sound. They turn you back at the airport if you can’t produce photographic evidence. We left relatively early to drive the route, and even the scenery on that road was pretty astounding.
One upside of the recent heavy rains in the area was an absolute plethora of waterfalls running off the mountains.
We saw Kias on the road! They were hanging around the queue of cars before the Homer Tunnel, bother tourists for food and/or car door rubber seals.
Herewith, a giant photo dump of the extraordinary fiords of Milford Sound. Words don’t really do this place justice. It’s just so different from anything I’ve seen in Western Australia that it feels like a different planet. The first picture is Mitre Peak, which towers 1690+ metres above the water.
Seagull photo bomb!
The Sound is more than 300 metres deep at its deepest point. Those sheer cliffs just keep going down.
There are a couple of permanent waterfalls in the Sound. Below is Stirling Falls, which we got extremely close to and extremely wet from at the bow of our tour boat.
A couple of lazy juvenile seals, sunning themselves on a rock:
Touring the Sound was a highlight of the NZ trip for us all. The landscape is jaw-dropping. Words don’t really do it justice. On the way home, we stopped to admire some of the scenic places that we passed over on the way here, including a portion of the Routeburn Track.
Overall, an amazing day. Unfortunately, it also marked our final “proper” day of holiday. Tomorrow, we head back to the airport at Queenstown and fly home.