Milford Sound

Sunday, December 7th

Happy Birthday Louis!

At 7:40am our sleepy bodies were waiting at the reception desk for the Kiwi Experience bus to Milford Sound to pick us up. Our bus apparently had issues and was delayed for 30mins or so. Nilesh got a bit impatient.

Our driver/guide was Diesel. He was totally Islander, saying things like I'll rock you all the way to Milford Sound. We'll stop here for you to pee or have a cup of tea. Cool cool cool. The 300km drive to Milford will take 5 hours one way.

So some facts about the area.

Sound is a river carved v-shape valley into the ocean. Fiord is the glacier carved into the ocean, causing mountains to rise directly from the oceans. There are only two true places with fiords in the world, New Zealand and Norway. The ones in Norway is twice the height of the ones in New Zealand. After this trip I will have seen the only two countries with fiords in the world.

New Zealand was created 25mn years ago when two plates - Pacific and Australian - collided and pushed New Zealand into their islands. In North island, the Pacific plate is slipping below the Australian plate causing volcanic reactions resulting in lots of hot springs (aka thermal pools) forming. In the north island, Lake Tapo is the largest crater in the world with largest volcanic activities.

In the South island the plates are rubbing against each other, forming large mountain ranges - southern alps from Wellington to Milford Sound. The mountains grow as fast as our fingernails, but land erosion is also occurring as fast, keeping it the same height. Mount Cook is the highest point in the South Islands.

Milford Track is supposed to be one of the finest walks in the world, according to an English journalist that never walked it but published photos of it. The 54km walk to Milford Sound starts at Te Anau Downs and it began in 1891. 100s and 1,000s of people come to do the walk each year. You need to book the tour a year in advance and takes 4 days. Guided walk costs NZD800 ($426) and alone is NZD240 ($128). Guided tour includes food, accommodations and heli bringing your bags from one place to another.

We drove through the fiordland national park. New Zealand's largest national park. It is 21,000 sq km or 8,100 sq miles big. We stopped by mirror lake, famous for their mountain reflections, to snap a few photos. Because of the wind and cloudy sky, it wasn't much of a mirror that day.

Lake Gunn was also pointed out to us. It has an alpine fault line pushing against it. The friction caused the largest earthquake in Queenstown in 2003. The epicenter was actually from doubtful sound.

When we drove by Mount christina, Diesel told us a sad story. Christina was the first youngest girl to do the Milford hike with three other adults. Unfortunately at the end of the trip, all 4 of them were lost and never returned.

Homer Tunnel was an interesting tunnel. It is not supported by any beam or structure. It was created by man digging through it.

In New Zealand there are a lot of one way bridges. You are constantly playing chicken to see if the car on the other side will really yield to you.

Around 1:30pm, we arrived at Milford Sound where we got tickets to hop on the ferry, buffet, and underwater observatory. We all got tickets before getting off the bus. Nilesh somehow didn't get them, and didn't realize until we were trying to get in the ferry. Needless to say, he jetted back to get his tickets. The lunch on the boat was ok. Edible. We stole a lot of condiments (ketchup, vegemite, butter, jam) from the buffet, as backpackers should.

I have to say Milford Sound, which is really a fiord, is nothing in comparison to Norway's fjord. Maybe it was the weather, but it wasn't so pretty. There was no reflection pools and the mountain was not green and the sky was white. It was nice but not amazing. Norwegian fjords were amazing. A lot of the South Island landscape reminds me of Norway, but I think I prefer Norway over New Zealand. I do like the adventure/extreme sport aspect of New Zealand though.

We went to the underwater observatory, where we get to walk 60 steps to see the marine life in 8 meters deep. The underwater windows they have are special acrylic glass imported from Germany. Each window weighs 160kg and is 120 mm thick. Everything we see are in its natural habitat, except black coral. Black coral is really white. It's called black coral because once you take it out of water it dies and turn black. The fine of someone taking out the coral is NZD1,000 ($533) per cm if you take it out. Black coral is extremely expensive because it is used to make jewelry.

We then hopped on a ferry back to the bus. We were all pooped and took naps on the first 2.5 hours of the journey. The second half we watched whale rider, the story of a Maori tribe. It was pretty good. Fits into the New Zealand theme. Steph, Bernice, and Alfio went to Base backpackers to get our refund for our glacier hike, while Nilesh and I went back to the hostel. Nilesh went for a run, while I just walked around Queenstown taking photos. At 9pm we were all supposed to meet back at base to go to dinner. Nilesh was late so he met us at the Mexican place. The Mexican place was ok, not the best, but good enough. Afterwards we just went back to pack and get ready for the next day. Bernice and Alfio are doing bungee jumping. Steph and Bernice are doing the canyon swing. Nilesh and I are just chilling. We decided to give atv a miss because it might rain.