Travel Notes: Milford Sound & the South — Day 10
Words are inadequate
27 October 2005
Dear Family & Friends,
We traveled from Queenstown to Milford Sound yesterday (Thursday for me, Wednesday for you) and spent the night in Te Anau.
As we travel through this magnificent country, I find myself at a loss for adjectives. I truly don’t know how to describe the variety of vistas I’ve experienced over the past few days.
As I mentioned in my earlier email about Queenstown, we were blessed with blue, cloudless skies from Franz Josef Glacier, to Fox Glacier, and through the countryside into Queenstown itself. A mountain range frames the town called The Remarkables—and they are indeed remarkable.
Light snow dusted the tops of the granite peaks, piercing the blue sky: rugged, majestic, protective. Huge glacier lakes lay calm and still, reflecting the mountains—turquoise water, forest-green blankets across the mountainsides, and a robin’s-egg-blue sky above.
Our travel day to Milford Sound could not have been more different.
As we moved toward the mountains, following miles of emerald-green pastures and rolling hills dotted with ewes and lambs grazing peacefully, the blue skies slowly filled with clouds. They gathered and darkened as the mountains grew taller and closer.
The road leading to the tunnel—the only passage through to Milford Sound—was wet. Misty wisps of rain clouds clung to the bare-faced granite mountains, now alive with hundreds of cascading waterfalls. Their only source is the rain itself. Robin, our driver and guide, explained that two hours after the rain stops, so do the waterfalls.
I was mesmerized by the number and variety of waterfalls and sheer rock faces as our big yellow bus wove back and forth up the incline, climbing the walls of a glacier-carved, bowl-shaped valley toward the tunnel entrance.
On the other side of the tunnel, we descended through temperate rainforest to the head of Milford Sound, where our ferry waited to take us out onto the most accessible of New Zealand’s fiords.
I learned something new:
A fiord is a valley shaped by a glacier and then back-filled by the sea.
A sound is a river-shaped valley that is later back-filled by the sea.
By that definition, Milford Sound is misnamed—but the name was given by the adventurer who discovered this safe harbor when the ocean beyond was too rough.
During our voyage, we saw dolphins, yellow-eyed penguins, fur seals, and Mitre Peak, veiled in mist. We ate lunch on the ferry and traveled all the way to the mouth of the fiord, where it meets the Tasman Sea.
After returning to the dock, we boarded our faithful big yellow bus and headed back to our hotel in Te Anau for the night.
Te Anau is a town beside a glacier lake of the same name—a quaint place built on tourism since the late 1800s. Our hotel sat right on the lakefront, with beautiful views. We were only there for one night, but Michelle and I took the opportunity to visit the Te Anau Glowworm Caves, located across the lake.
That meant another boat ride (if you’re counting, that’s number five—including the jet boats on the Shotover River). We rode in silence and darkness to witness a miniature “night sky” of blue stars glowing on the ceiling of a cave. You’ve got to do it once!
Today (Friday for me, Thursday for you), we traveled through more emerald-green countryside, again dotted with ewes and lambs—yes, there really are that many sheep in New Zealand, and I think they’re all delightful, even though Robin insists sheep are “highly unintelligent.”
We even experienced a New Zealand traffic jam: sheep crossing the road to reach another pasture. Traffic either waits—or, like Robin, slowly pushes through to keep us on schedule. Because today, we had a train to catch.
We rode a train from the middle of nowhere through the Taieri Gorge to Dunedin, the most Scottish city south of the equator. Remember: “If it’s not Scottish, it’s crap!” (Thank you, Mike Myers.)
Tomorrow (Saturday for me, Friday for you), we’ll tour Dunedin and visit the Royal Albatross Centre, the Cadbury Chocolate Factory, and Speight’s Brewery, before enjoying a traditional haggis ceremony and dinner.
Whew. I’m exhausted. Time to spell-check this puppy and send it along.
More later!
Love to all,
TJ