The Perfect Trip to Milford Sound

This will be my last blog from New Zealand as I am leaving tomorrow morning to return to the great state of Maine! Thankfully, I just had the most perfect last weekend in NZ that I could have hoped for, and that I won't soon forget.

On Saturday, my flatmate Chris and I left Dunedin in his car at 10am heading westward, making only one stop in rural Gore for KFC before getting to stunning Te Anau, on the shores of Lake Te Anau, the largest lake on the South Island. We stopped briefly to pay for our kayak trip and get coffee and pancakes before pressing onwards, north along the Milford Road! The Milford Road starts in Te Anau and ends in Milford Sound, and at 120 kms long it is the longest dead end road in New Zealand :) Chris and I made several stops on the way, just because the mountains of Fiordland rising up on either side of the road are so massive and amazing. We finally arrived at the Homer Tunnel, a long tunnel that goes right through a mountain, carved out by hand during the depression. Not long after the tunnel we drove down into Milford and checked in at the Milford Lodge. Chris and I made pizza for dinner and talked with a British couple that were also kayaking the next morning. We hung out for a while at the lodge, but when the full moon rose, we walked the 15 minutes down the road to the sound and looked at the ghostly images of Mitre Peak and the surrounding mountains lit up by the moon.

On Sunday we had to get up fairly early to get ready for the day. To our delight, there wasn't a cloud in the sky! This fact alone is amazing because Fiordland, a temperate rainforest, gets 6 meters (18 feet) of rain per year. It's almost never sunny! We were pretty excited. Even more so when our kayak guide couldn't contain her excitement about how nice a day it was! We were very very lucky. Drove down to the water and got all of our kayak gear on, and Chris and I jumped in a two person kayak, with me in front. There were 3 other double kayaks and our guide, a great group size! We were out on Milford Sound for 4 hours, marvelling at the view, drinking out of a glacial river, snapping photos of a sunning seal, and very thankful for the calm water. It was an amazing trip. We finished with a stop at Bowen Falls, three times higher than Niagara Falls, and very impressive. On the way back I counted 14 mountains that I could see from my kayak that were well over 1500 meters high. Amazing! All that kayaking made us pretty sleepy, so we spent the afternoon lazing around and went out for dinner that night at the Blue Duck Cafe :)

On Monday the clouds had returned, settling in the ridges and valleys of the mountains. Chris and I made one last visit to the sound, and lucky we did, I saw 2 new birds! A white heron and some grey ducks. We set out at 10:00 knowing we had to cross the entire country before dark :) Made some stops along the Milford Road on the way back, stopped in Te Anau for coffee and walked to the wildlife refuge so I could see a Takahe, then continued on towards Dunedin. After 4 hours of DJ Kate's 90's hit remix, we were finally back. When I closed my eyes to go to sleep, all I could see were mountains...