Giveaways
The Amazon Kindle and Kobo versions of my book The Sensational South Island, which has just been updated, are on special at US $2.99 and NZ $3.99, respectively, for the rest of October 2022. Click here for a universal shop link to the eBook versions. Or, you may wish to buy the paperback, which you can purchase on Amazon with white paper and Lulu with cream paper. Read on, past the image of my book's cover, for the post!
MILFORD Sound, or Piopiotahi, is at the end of a long road from Te Anau known as Te Anau Milford Highway (SH 94), or the Milford Road. People generally go to the sound for a day and come back.
Alternatively, they may walk the Milford Track.
But you can also spend a week or so in the Milford area just doing day trips off the Milford Road, which is actually one of the most scenic roads in the world. And in fact, this is really the best approach if you aren’t doing the track. The two are complementary and form a loop, as you can see from this map, in which the track is in black and the road is in red.
For, a further advantage of spending a week in the area and doing other things is that you can get the weather you want at the main attraction, Milford Sound/Piopiotahi: and perhaps even a fine day and a wet day, both magnificent in their own way. On the fine day you can see more, but on the wet day the waterfalls are bigger.
At the head of the sound there is a small tourist township and terminal with five different boats. In fact, there’s enough to do at the Sound to keep you busy for both the fine day and the wet day. Of which the first may be only occasional, and the latter plenty, especially when you are west of the Divide, that is to say, the main divide of the Southern Alps/Kā Tiritiri o te Moana, which is encountered halfway along the Milford Road.
This time around, I took one of the boats to the Underwater Observatory at Harrison Cove, a viewing chamber ten metres under the water which I really enjoyed. The surface layer in the Sound is dark, so the viewing chamber seems to be much deeper than ten metres, and you can see deep-water species in the gloom.
The sailboat that plies the sound is another good option. And there are kayaking and diving expeditions as well.
You can get special deals on the web if you book at least three days beforehand.
This post was updated on 13 October 2022, in ways that have included additional material and being split into three parts. In the next two parts, I will be talking about the Milford Road itself. The first of the two sequels that describe the Milford Road and the things that you can do along it, on the way to the sound, is here.
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