Day 9. Saturday 15th November 2003
Te Anau - Milford Sound - Te Anau

Left for Milford Sound quite early so we could stop a lot on the way (had read it is a picturesque road). Stopped off at Mirror Lakes which were smaller and less impressive than I had imagined, but there was this little bird there that was singing his heart out in a very unusual way. His whole body was put into the effort of singing this tune which consisted of a whistle, a tune, a croak, and a hiss—it's true!. Next we stopped at this lay-by where there was this amazing view of the rainforest and mountains. We saw our first wild Keas (eating someone's car door seal) and were dead pleased we'd seen them in the wild. They have a dead cheeky way and you can't help but love their attitude. When flying you can see a vivid orange colour under their wings.

The road itself to Milford Sound was very scenic, we even made it to the snow line and into the avalanche area, but thankfully November rarely sees one. We then passed through an extremely scary, narrow, dark tunnel—there were no lights in there only little red reflectors, and the walls looked like they had been chipped away by hand. It went down quite steeply and was about 1.2km long with water pouring through and running down the road at points. I was glad there was a car a little way ahead of us to show where the road was going.

Next we stopped at a place called "the Chasm". First it looked like you were just walking off into the wet, dripping forest but then we heard a heavy drumming, roaring noise which was quite unnerving. By looking down through naturally made hole in the rock you can see a extremely powerful river cutting through the ground in a semi-waterfall. The holes were so deep and the water so powerful that whole trees had been smashed and rammed into the holes. There were two more Kea's causing a diversion in the car park on the way back.

We finally arrived in Milford Sound. The boats all leave from the same terminus, quite recently done-up. We travelled on the boat "Friendship" a much smaller, and more personal vessel than most, some of which were overnighters. On leaving the dock Mitre Peak is right in front of you and is hugely impressive. Immediately on leaving the harbour I was struck by the amazing view of an immense waterfall plummeting down the massive cliffs on the right. The waterfall is far bigger than you'd imaging—in fact all the waterfalls were—and there were so many of them.

There is literally tones of water coming down the sheer cliffs, one of which is the tallest sea cliff in the world—taller apparently than the Empire State Building. You feel so tiny on board the boat surrounded by a huge expanse of water (up to 380m in depth) and then, immediately rising up, mountains on all sides. The view was outstanding and everything was so green, as trees cover the bottom slopes, except for where the waterfalls carve their route. We were taken to view many of the falls close-up, getting sprayed by the flow. We saw NZ fur seals basking in the sun and also some tiny penguins hopping around the rocks.

The fjord is fresh water but thanks to a shallow shelf at the mouth of the sound the sea water comes in and sinks under the fresh, tannin laden water. This means it is very dark near the surface, so black corals grow very near the surface. Took loads of pictures but doubt any will do justice to the reality. We stopped on the way back at the Underwater observatory. this is a floating platform on the ford that has an observation gallery for viewing the marine life under the water. It was lovely to see so many fish, corals, and plants. Apparently you sometimes see seals, dolphins, and even whales passing the windows.

Another boat picked us up and dropped us back at the harbour. We drove back to Te Anau, too tired to visit the Gloworm Caves nearby, it had already been a very full and very nice day.