On route to Milford Sound, New Zealand, South Island, Queenstown

The road to Milford sound is a magnificent scenic highway that travels from the shores of lake Te Anau, across the mountains beyond, to emerge in the glacier carved splendour of Milford Sound, the focal point of Fiordland 🏞 National Park, a total trip of 242 Kms. 

We are off on the day tour to Milford Sound, on our waka (Maori expression for ‘mode of transportation’: 🚣‍♀️ or Coach) and within 45m we are into river country. On our left,  rocks on land to the left give telltale signs of an ancient river that would once have flowed across. The warm sun lazily smiles on the green land below. Green lush vegetation beholden soak it up gratefully. Cattle graze across the farmlands on both sides. Sheep 🐑 crouch down sauntering around in no particular direction. There seems all the time in the world and there appears no rush. Ahead,  two coaches lazily crisscross the country side as the third coach (ours) follow some safe distance behind.  A smooth rhythm is set as the bus eats up the kilometres ahead lazily  while gently country lyrics lull us to gentle slumber. The road signage are few and intermittent marking off road speed, cautioning a school ahead, occasionally signposting a hotel, or motel. Else otherwise, the road ahead, the sun ☀️ smiling resplendently below, rolling hills and green all around. Time almost standing still. Yellow gorse grow in wild abandon across the hillside, breaking around in a riot of colour, sometimes in sparsely clumps, and then more often across large tracts. Yellow and Green - the two awesome joyful colours of life so amazingly intertwining in an array of dazzling collage.  Eyes feast on the medley of colours brought up in shades of green and yellow. Up ahead, grey coloured gorse suddenly spurt up calling attention to itself. As I look straight ahead, multiple hills weave and interlock across each other: and then I realise that valley and hill are one: the latter create the former, giving it form, presence, grandeur. One unable to do without the other. This is a landscape presenting itself in the panoply of its beauty, hills, valley, farms, trees, bushes and all. Together it weaves the magic! 

Our lady coach driver occasionally alerts us about highlights of the land we are moving across: What diary, farming, activities are on. I learn that the focus is on diary to what used to be earlier sheep farming. From a ratio of 9:1, it’s now down to 5:1 ( sheep: people) giving way to Wales as the number 1 sheep rearing country.  The main type of sheep are merino and Romney, whose female usually give birth to twins and triplets. 

Then her voice fades off, and the gentle country music 🎶 steps in. On the road, one can see dead possum, considered to be a pest and nuisance, run over by passing cars. This is not the only one. Along the route I see many more. 

Just ahead, the plains to the right stretch out pushing the hills yonder. Clumps of trees 🌲 and bushes dot the landscape marking off fertile green farms. The sun ☀️ has warmed up things around, cajoling the shaking out of jackets and out layers of garments. The two coaches are a kilometer ahead allowing us more view of the winding roads. An occasional 🚙 SUV or camper would drive past reminding us of the two way road, else it was just us driving across. 

The gently humming of tires on tarmac, the slight rumble from side to side, the western music, and the now bright sun 🌞 outside lulling one to relax and gently doze. A few smaller cars 🚗 overtake us, stay in sight for a while, then disappear. 

And the coach chugs on. 

We pull up at Te Anau, a small village for a 30m break, grab coffee while we have breakfast we brought alongwith us then back on the coach rolling away past even more lush meadows and greens. The weather is absolutely perfect, warm and 😎 sunny as we start the descent upwards the long winding roads. We pass Kettle lake  earlier.  Lake Te Anau( the curve) lies indolent to our left carved out from a glacier. The scenery is breathtaking and awe inspiring. 

Milford Sound is actually a Fiord and 110 kms away now. Manuka honey 🍯 is what’s famous in New Zealand.  Honey is rated UMF, 5 rating being the best. 20 is for sniffles. 70 is for flu 🤧 but consumed sparsely. Manuka ‘s cousin Canuka is grown here.  I understand Manuka could be used for cuts and wounds. 

The terrain now changes from scrubs to forests. And as we proceed it gets even more dense. And the sun gets shaded out and it starts to cool off in the thickset as the road is covered by trees 🌳 as it embraces each other. 

Soon we pass this stretch and get back to the plains. Pounamu  is a sacred stone. Tapu is a generic term for ‘sacred’ and it’s placed on anything to allow for it to be protected. A tapu can be lifted as well. Tapu is a very real concept in New Zealand. More so, as the culture is pretty intertwined unlike other countries where the indigenous people (the maori) are more integrated into the mainstream. 

We are headed now into thicker forests and surrounded by hills on all sides. Tall alpine trees 🌲 raise their neck up to the mountain sky in greeting. And even above the snow line is visible marking out where snow capped hills would be decked with snow. No trees grow there. 

We now come to Fiordland national Park made up of 14 fiords. Maori ascribe this feature to PIOPIOTAHI,  a god who carved out these fiords carving out 350 islands and who now sits on 😈 devil seat. Once in 4-5 years, seeds from the hill trees drop to the ground. This creates a huge environmental issue: Rodents are a plenty and they feed off the 🦅 birds 🦢 and chicks. 

The coach stops for 5m in a glacier valley (enough time for me to smoke a cigarette 🚬) even as we take a few pictures from scenes shot from Lord of the Rings. The tree lines come down and onto the glacier valley. We are soon approaching the mirror lakes.

We stop for 5m to take pictures. 

We are at latitude 45 degrees south as the coach climbs up knobs flat. Lots of beech 🌳 trees with roots not too deep. Moss and lichen grow wild. Here tree avalanche is a definite threat when wind gusts can blow them off. A tree avalanche starts big and then comes down small, unlike a snow avalanche. It’s takes 300-400 years for those trees to grow back again to cover lost foliage. But for now shrubs stay tenant to lost ground. 

A short comfort break and we are off again. Into roads that once again are covered by thick foliage, the sun ☀️ would occasionally sneak in brightening the road from time to time. We soon approach cascade creek, the last camping ⛺️ ground on the way. Mosses grow below the forest floor and creep up the trees. Lake Gunn (named after Davey John Gunn who rescued a few aviators) is to our left now, as it follows the winding road for a few kilometers.

Soon we come up to the great divide, the place where the road construction began. Hollyford valley begins here and with great foot trails. Mount Christina path lies ahead, a trail surveyed by a student and named after her. Soon we pass Gunn camp. We slow down to take a picture of falls creek. 

We are now on the fault line (Alpine Fault) and ordernarily there is 1-2 earthquakes under 4 rietcher  scale. We are soon approaching monkey fall. Stopped over near a stream to fill up water 💦 bottles, take a few snaps and move on. The taste of the water is cool, fresh and refreshing. Took a picture of local birds 🦅 as we moved on. One can see the ice now almost a few meters high and during summers this place is dressed with multiple waterfalls. 

Milford Sounds is a world heritage site. Shortly, we pass through the Homer tunnel. Water levels here having been steadily rising providing useful insights about what other parts of the world would witness say in next 20-30 years. 

We are now at Tutoko Valley almost close to journey’s end. The moss is quite overgrown and creeping up to the branches of the 🌲 trees. Amazing greens with all sort of textures. 

We would shortly be boarding the ferry ⛴. Arthur’s valley lies to our left. An airport is close by to help tourist take a 45 m flight back. The coach journey has taken over 4 hours including all the breaks in between. 

So here we are at Milford Sound! Ready to head off to pier 5. There’s been so much written about Milford Fiord so I will just allow the pictures below to tell its own tale. 

Hope you had as much fun reading this as I had travelling this path. Cheers. 🙏