Milford Sound

We stayed overnight in lovely Te Anau and woke up to another beautiful hot blue sky day. We have not been waking up until 8 am as the children have such trouble going to sleep although when they do, they look so cute. It's just not the same when they wake up. We struggled to leave the campsite on time.

Our late start meant that we missed the stream of coaches and cars heading out along the Milford Road. We stopped to take a few photos on the way, but otherwise headed straight for the Sound (actually a fjord but I'm sure you knew that anyway) It was amazing to be surrounded by so many beautiful mountains, some snow capped, many unclimbed.

Richard finds the vistas endlessly absorbing, but I find that one beautiful mountain starts to look like another after a while. I need to interact with nature - walking or climbing to be in touch with the landscape.

At Milford we took a boat down the Sound. It was amazing to see Mitre Rock against a vivid blue sky - the classic view. We sailed out towards the Tasman Sea. No pengiuns or dolphins on our trip, but we did see fur seals sunning themselves on a large rock. The strong wind whipped out the spray from the falls soaking us as the boat drew near and creating curiously geometric patterns of bubbles on the water, radiating outward from the falls.

The beauty and majesty of the sound was spoilt for me by the feeling that I was on a tourism conveyor belt. Two other cruise boats preceeeded us up the sound, all on the same route. Five or six boats overate from Milford, with four sailings each per day.

We stopped on the Milford Road at Cascade Creek, a quiet campground with just a few fireplaces to use. The strong winds kept the sandflies away so we enjoyed a lovely evening surrounded by unfamiliar mountains with a beautiful sunset.