Milford Sound

This was an area that kept popping up any time I looked at “must visit” places on the South Island. You can make a day trip here, but the closest town, Te Anau, is 2 hours away. There are very limited accommodations, and they are pretty pricey. What the heck. I decided we were due a little splurge, so I booked us a riverside chalet at the Milford Sound Lodge, and we couldn’t have been happier.

This was the view from our room after an afternoon of rain -

I did it again. I’m getting way ahead of myself... We had a gorgeous day on driving here, and thoroughly enjoyed the journey along Lake Te Anau -

We marveled at the hills suddenly getting higher around us…

(this is a small reminder of the tons of sheep we saw all throughout this country)

Mirror Lakes was a stop I had planned, and the clear skies…

… contributed to the beauty -

And while we walked on the boardwalk along them, a fellow photographer pointed out the Little Shag nest (with bald-headed babies) -

Moving on down the road, we reached the trailhead for the Routeburn Track, which is one of the renowned multi-day hikes in New Zealand, with huts to stay at along the way. I just wanted to do a day hike, and this one lent itself to that quite well. Right after we started, there was a pretty little waterfall right beside the trail -

The first half of the trail was in lush forest, which provided us nice cover from the hot sun…

… but the views on top of Key Summit were quite worth the climb -

Our round trip hike was 5 miles and we gained nearly 1,400 ft of elevation.

There were a number of tarns at the top…

… which gave some interesting reflections -

I caught this one just before the clouds moved in -

As we started to drive away, I saw some people photographing a bird along the roadside. It was “attacking” a car -

This is a Kea, which is the world’s only alpine parrot. They are found only on the South Island of New Zealand, usually in forests and alpine regions. Humans are attractive to them because of the birds’ curiosity and intelligence, as well as the bounty that the birds can steal from backpacks and campsites. They are commonly called “cheeky”.

Okay, so now we’re back on the storyline. We got settled into our lovely chalet before heading out the next day for a hike on the Milford Track, another multi-day hike. This one ends at the Milford Sound. To make a day hike of it, you take a water taxi for a 5 minute ride to the trailhead -

The weather prediction for the day was cloudy with a good chance of rain. This is quite common here, as it rains an average 182 days a year, for a total average rainfall of 268 inches (over 22 feet)!!

This makes for an obviously lush walkway.

there at least 4-5 types of ferns in this one shot

We encountered another endemic bird along the path, a Weka, which is also known as a woodhen -

We also had one poking around our chalet later that evening. They are the size of small chickens. Anyway, back to our hike… Lots of rain makes lots of waterfalls…

… and it was fascinating how ephemeral they could be -

One that is always there, and was the goal of our hike, is Giant Gate Falls:

Steve very kindly lugged our tripod on various hikes, when I knew there were waterfalls, so I could try and take pictures like this -

I had booked a cruise on Milford Sound for the morning we were leaving, which dawned gorgeously clear -

We cruised for a couple of hours into Milford Sound, with its incredibly tall walls…

… and numerous huge waterfalls…

… where the sunshine gave us cool rainbow effects -

You say you’re tired of scrolling, eh?

Ok… bye!