Day 79 - Milford Sound - The Drive

We attempted an early start though this resulted in us leaving Te Anau at about 09:00 yet this would still give us ample time to do all of the day’s driving. We had decided to do the drive to Milford Sound minus a cruise as the 120km (240km return) Milford Road drive is meant to be one of the world’s finest drives. We’d figured that if we did another cruise it would just be more of the same and we’d already done Doubtful Sound which is bigger and less touristy.

Our first stop of the day was at the Mirror Lakes, 58km into the drive, though this stop was cut short due to the lingering mist of the morning. We’d heard that the weather would be sunny later on and so opted to stop here on the return journey. There was a lot of mist early on but it would clear in parts giving way to very interesting views of the tops of the huge surrounding hills. It was a little annoying for this first leg of the trip as we knew there would be great backdrops but these were being shrouded by the fog.

Our second stop was Deer Flat a little further up the road where we attempted a few more photos to try and capture the strange effect the weather had caused.

Then it was on to a couple of stops along Lake Gunn which offered nice views across the lake as this was below the clutches of the mist.

Stop five offered a very nice lookout, with the fog clearing enough for us to be able to see more of the mountains surrounding us. We decided that we’d stop here again on the way back and see if it had changed much. The weather has a huge impact on what the views will be like around these areas though we think that the only weather that could potentially ruin the experience for people would be thick fog all day. At least this light mist was clearing and the sun was breaking through so we remained quietly confident about our second 120km stint.

We made a brief stop six to take in yet more wondrous sights before reaching the Homer Tunnel which cuts 1200 metres through the headwall of the Hollyford Valley. Each April locals compete in a race through this dark tunnel completely naked apart from their running shoes apparently. There was a fair wait here as the traffic was regulated by lights at this time so we had 5 or 10 minutes to sit, relax and look back through the valley before we got the green light. Emerging at the other end we spotted a kea which was almost heading for a repeat of the harrier incident though seemed to have slightly more common sense it would seem. Unfortunately the mist was thick at this side of the tunnel and so was hiding what we knew would be more spectacular views.

We briskly made our way to The Chasm which turned out to be quite a good little stop as the views of this Swiss cheese like rock formation in the river were pretty good and easily viewable as were untouched by the mist.

We then reached our destination, Milford, and pulled up in the busy car park where we left the van to do a short walk and look out to the Sound. This view was not nearly as impressive as what we’d both imagined; we’re sure that the sights would be comparable to the ones at Doubtful Sound once out on a boat, though from the edge of the water you couldn’t really get the same feel as our previous day’s tour. We figured this was mainly due to the very touristy vibe here with the amount of: buildings, noise, cars/ vans, people. This coupled with the swampy area as a result of lots of nice sunny weather made for a very anti-climactic vista.

We soon had seen enough and decided to make the 120km route back along the very enjoyable scenic route.

We got to see the views that were previously cloaked from us before as we pulled up to wait to enter the Homer Tunnel and they were as we had come to expect from this place – amazing.

Back through the tunnel we managed to make our tenth stop which allowed us to take in a, now fully visible, snowy mountain. We also made stop eleven further along to take in more of these grand surroundings.

Stop twelve was at a lookout we’d been to earlier and the view had cleared a little more so we parked up to take this in for a few minutes before heading off again.

Our penultimate stop of this trip was at Cascade Creek where yet another photo opportunity awaited Miss Lesser; Danny is dreading the final number of photos that will have to be sifted through as a result of this one outing - an entire day will probably need to be spent on this task.

Our last stop before making it back to Te Anau was at Mirror Lakes again; though this time we could see the obvious reason for their name. The small lakes offered almost crystal clear reflections of the rocky ranges beyond, the only imperfections being caused by the diving ducks continuously swimming under the clear waters in search of food. This irritated Corrie and we spent about 15 minutes here waiting, in vein, for the ducks to get their fill.

Back at Te Anau we got some supplies for lunch and stopped for it just outside the town at a picturesque little picnic area.

Next was Corrie’s turn at the wheel to take us the long, though you’ll not be surprised to read, extremely scenic drive through to Queenstown. As we were nearing the town we could see a small taster of what this town is popular for (adventure sports) with a few paragliders floating slowly down to earth from the hills above, along with the odd small plane or helicopter passing overhead. We finally found some accommodation for the night – Queenstown Lakeview Holiday Park, located at the bottom of the Skyline Gondola, right next to town. A nice enough place though we plan to move tomorrow due to the sardine like cramming of campervans and $2 showers!

We made our way into town for a look around some of the shops before making our way to Fat Badgers to get ourselves a pizza with a side order of curly fries.

That was the end to yet another very lovely day in New Zealand.