Milford Sound

I reckon the drive to Milford Sound was probably the single most stunning road I've travelled in all of New Zealand (and of course I kept thinking how much better it would have been to cycle it). Unfortunately we were in a bit of a rush, as we wanted to get to the accommodation before dark, so we didn't have as much time as I would have liked to stop and stare.

The backpackers at Milford was a brilliant place with a huge, very comfortable common room, and a good kitchen. So after a nice dinner it was an early night, followed by an early start the next morning. As Milford Sound is located in a national park, there isn't much development in the area, and most people just bus in for the day and bus back out again.

We arrived down at the harbour where all the boats depart and checked in for our tour with Real Journeys again (which we'd booked back at Manapouri). This time we only booked a short two hour tour, as Milford is much smaller than Doubtful, and can be seen easily in that time.

This time we had far more constant rain, but as all the blurb says, that just makes the waterfalls all the more stunning. Actually I reckon that's just wishful marketing really, but we were lucky enough to have enough clear breaks in the weather to get both the powerful waterfalls and have clear views of the towering cliff tops.

The highlights of this trip, apart from simply looking at Milford's signature Mitre Peak, were probably manoeuvering the boat right up against the shear cliff walls as they tower 1000m straight above you, or moving the boat right under a huge waterfall - fantastic. Although the boat trip was much shorter, and the Sound itself much smaller in overall scale, I reckon Milford is more visually stunning than Doubtful Sound.

Since the boat trip was quite short, we had time once back on land for a stroll along a couple of short trails, before driving back down the Milford Road towards the town of Te Anau to catch our night tour of the glowworms.