Giveaways
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, you can 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, the subject of last week’s post. The Milford Track and the Milford Road 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.
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, where you can go on boat cruises out to where the open sea begins.
If you linger in the area, you can experience a fine day and a wet day at Milford Sound, both magnificent in their own way.
On a fine day, you can see more. But on a wet day, the waterfalls for which the area is also famed are bigger and more numerous.
At the head of the Sound, there is a small tourist township and terminal with five different boats the last time I checked. There is a Visitor Centre with a café:
There is a lookout track nearby, and the grave of the explorer Donald Sutherland, after whom the 580-metre (1.904 feet) Sutherland Falls are named, and his wife Elizabeth, both of whom died a bit over a hundred years ago. In their time, they were the only people living at Milford Sound!
There is a carpark near the Visitor Centre, which costs about $NZ 60 for most of a day!
And a seashore walk, from the carpark around to the cruise boat terminal. This is the usual way for people who have parked in the carpark to get to the terminal, and also quite an attractive walk in its own right.
Only tour buses are able to drive to the boat terminal and embark passengers through its grand entrance, though if you have a relative or friend who is disabled you can ask the staff to use it.
There’s enough to do at the Sound to keep you busy for both a fine day and a wet day. Of which the first may be only occasional and the latter frequent when you are west of the main divide of the Southern Alps/Kā Tiritiri o te Moana, which is encountered partway along the Milford Road.
A few years ago, I took a boat tour in the wet, which is when I took the waterfall photos above, and this one:
The boat pulled into 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 with freshwater runoff and plant tannins, so the viewing chamber seems to be much deeper than ten metres, and you can see deep-water species in the gloom.
Unfortunately, the Underwater Observatory has been damaged in a storm since that date, and it is not clear when it will reopen.
More recently, this February, my friend Chris and my father Brian took a Pure Milford cruise on the sound in fine weather. Here are some photos and videos that Chris shot on the boat:
Here is a video of Stirling Falls, one of three waterfalls that still discharge into Milford Sound in fine weather. The Stirling Falls are fed by melting glaciers and are 155 metres tall, though the mile-high cliffs and mountains adjacent to the Sound (which is actually a fjord) make them look not so high by comparison! Cruise boats pull in close to the Stirling Falls, where the cliff face is covered in intensely green moss and other plants.
Chris managed to get a great video of the Real New Zealand cruise boat leaving the terminal (with the Bowen Falls, the tallest permanent falls in Milford Sound, in shot) and steaming past in the opposite direction to the Pure Milford boat.
The Real New Zealand boat has sails, which makes things a bit more romantic on a longer cruise. It also offers an overnight 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.
At the Sound, if you have a campervan, you can stay at one of the Premium Rainforest Campervan Sites outside the Milford Sound Lodge. There are also more upmarket options in its chalets.
Dinner at the Lodge's Pio Pio Restaurant is quite costly. However, the Visitor Centre café by the main Milford Sound carpark has more affordable options.
If you liked the post above, check out my book about the South Island! It’s available for purchase from my website, a-maverick.com.
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