Fantastic fjords

The conclusion to the story of the road trip together with Juuso and Eeva:

On day 6 of the road trip (Monday 30 March) we left Queenstown and headed for Te Anau in Fiordland, a place very well known to myself and Giigan by then, since this was to be our third visit to the region. Giigan was the driver for the first hour of our journey, but as we'd cleared most signs of human habitation and only the stray possum was in any danger of becoming overrun, the driver seat was relinquished to Juuso, who had expressed his interest in experiencing what it's like to drive "on the wrong side of the road".

Later on, the steering wheel was commanded by Eeva, who didn't want to miss the opportunity either. For the second time since buying our green Bluebird, Giigan and I found ourselves in the back seat! We could have gotten used to it.

A slightly confused Eeva.

Arriving in Te Anau we quickly checked in to our hostel, the Rainbow Downs Barnyard Backpackers, which has become our usual place to stay in that region of NZ. We had a nice lunch at the Sandfly Cafe (luckily devoid of the little buggers) before having a competition at the nearby minigolf course. The loser had to buy a round of beer at the opposite Red Cliff Cafe (which contrary to its name actually is a terrific restaurant), and if memory serves right, the drinks were on Juuso. While enjoying the cold beers in the sunny weather we took the opportunity of playing petanque in the court at the back of the cafe. With an almost crushing victory, team Eeva/JBB disillusioned the cocky arrogance of team Juuso/Giigan. Högmod går före fall, as we say in Swedish.

In the evening we came back to the Red Cliff Cafe to have dinner, and what a dinner it was (we had dinner with Giigan's parents there too and it was just as good)! The Red Cliff serves delicious, distinctive food and possesses a warm, cozy atmosphere as well. No wonder some of the stars of the Lord of the Rings movies liked to dine there too!

Day 7 saw us going on a day trip to Milford Sound. Juuso and Eeva went on a cruise and afterward we all shared a picnic in the fantastic scenery and late afternoon sunshine.

Is there a better place for a picnic than this?

The next day we got to admire another fantastic fjord: Doubtful Sound. Giigan and I went on a day cruise, while Juuso and Eeva went on an overnight cruise. Both cruises depart from Manapouri, which is a small town 20 km south from Te Anau, and start with a cruise across the island-studded Lake Manapouri. At the Manapouri underground hydro power station you board a coach, which takes you on the Wilmot Pass road to Deep Cove. The day cruise includes a tour of the underground power station before the coach trip. The power station is very impressive. The coach drives down a spiraling vehicle access tunnel which is 2 km long until you're 200 metres below the surface of Lake Manapouri. The machine hall is deep inside the mountain and looks like something from a James Bond movie. There are seven generators each providing 121,5 MW of electricity. If you're interested in reading more about this fascinating hydro power station, go here.

After 22 km along the Wilmot Pass road we arrived at Deep Cove, the head of Doubtful Sound, located 40 km from the open sea. There we boarded our vessel for the three hour cruise on the fjord, which is about three times longer than Milford Sound. Doubtful Sound is in fact the second largest of the 14 fjords in the Fiordland National Park (Dusky Sound is the largest), and as we soon discovered, completely different compared to Milford Sound. Nonetheless immensely beautiful, but in a another way. Whereas the water of Milford Sound is surrounded by sheer, at times even vertical cliff faces, the overall look of Doubtful Sound is a lot more round and undulating. The fjord is also a lot broader and has three arms. Comparing the two fjords is, however, like comparing Salma Hayek and Ksenia Sukhinova. Sure, both are very beautiful, but a verdict can be nothing but subjective.

On the Doubtful Sound cruise.

The following day (Thu 2 April) we picked up Eeva and Juuso as they returned from their overnight cruise of the fjord and headed back to Queenstown. We had lunch at the Arrowtown Brewery in the former gold mining town Arrowtown just north of Queenstown. This time we stayed at the Garden Court Apartments in Queenstown; an option on par with our apartment accommodation in Wanaka.

Friday 3 April marked the 10th and last full day of our road trip. To honour this we played a round of golf at what has to be one of the most scenic golf courses in NZ: the Queenstown Golf Course located on the peninsula Kelvin Heights, which juts out into Lake Wakatipu. It was absolutely amazing, and I think I speak for all four of us when I say that was one of the most pleasant games of golf I've ever enjoyed, despite the results which aren't worthy the light of day. The perfect day was topped off with a home-made farewell dinner á la JBB & Giigan. We finally got to uncork the bottle of sparkling from the Christchurch hotel too.

JBB teeing off at the Queenstown Golf Course.

Saturday was a day of goodbyes. Juuso's and Eeva's flight left in the morning and the two of us were left wondering what to do next. The past 10 days had been so action-packed that we were suddenly at a loss of what to do with ourselves. The process of getting back to everyday life, meaning not living in comfy motels and apartments and eating gourmet food, had to begin.

We had the most amazing time together with Juuso and Eeva, and are looking very much forward to them visiting us in Australia too. Thanks for not choosing a pacific island resort! :-)

Juuso and Eeva enjoying a massage before the ~35 h flight back home.

MORE PICTURES are available here.

See a VIDEO CLIP of a remarkable dawn over Queenstown here (during an earlier visit to Queenstown on 26.2.2009).

Milford Sound

The Maoris are claimed to have found Piopiotahi over a thousand years ago. According to their legend, the fjords of Aotearoa were not formed by grinding glaciers, but by an atua - a godly figure - named Tu-te-raki-whanoa. This titanic mason had been given the task to sculpture the western coast of Fiordland, and moving from south to north, he put his giant adze to work, singing a powerful chant, and hued out the many fjords in the region. Piopiotahi, the northernmost fjord, became his masterpiece, and is today known as Milford Sound.

Milford Sound.

Having made the trip to Milford Sound three times by now, we can say that the trip is as much an experience, a discovery in itself, as the actual destination. Often acclaimed the most famous tourist attraction in New Zealand, Milford Sound is the only fjord accessible by road and lies a two hour drive north of Te Anau (excluding stops). It makes a good return day trip from the little service town. You should leave either really early in the morning, or closer to noon in order to avoid most of the tourist buses, some of which come all the way from Queenstown. And don't worry about the weather; the journey to Milford Sound is spectacular no matter what the forecast looks like. We've seen it painted in scattering clouds, in astonishing sunshine from a cobalt blue sky, and in the aftermath of pouring rain. In fact, the fjord is one of the wettest places on Earth with a mean annual rainfall of nearly seven metres over 182 days per year.

At a glance this might not sound so inviting, until you realise one of the most astonishing features of the destination are the hundreds of temporary waterfalls forming after heavy rain. The myriad of vertical streams cascading down the steep cliff faces are like white cracks in the dark impregnable walls. Tapestries of water and stone.

Our best visit to Milford Sound was in fact also the wettest!

Leaving Te Anau, the road follows the shore of Lake Te Anau for about half an hour. At Te Anau Downs the road turns inland, but continues north into the Eglinton Valley between the Earl Mountains and the Livingstone Mountains. Driving on the flat valley floor following the Eglinton River feels like driving in a tunnel; dark mountain walls rise on either side of the yellow plain covered in knee-high grass. The first time we drove through the valley there was an even cloud sheet obscuring the mountain tops, creating a kind of roof over the valley. The feeling was almost claustrophobic.

With the canopy of the rainforest reaching over the road, some parts of the trip felt like driving through a green tunnel.

Further up the valley, the Mirror Lakes are worth a stop while driving through pristine rainforest towards the last and best hour of the journey. Once you reach the Divide (the lowest east/west crossing in the Southern Alps) the scenery turns just mind-blowing for the last 35 km to the head of Milford Sound. Everywhere you look you see towering mountains, green native forest, streams, and after rain, lots and lots of temporary waterfalls. The road is quite narrow and twisty so you can't go fast, but you don't want to either, because you want to absorb the magnificence of the untouched nature filling the car windows.

A couple of kilometres from the Divide there are two lookouts a few hundred metres apart. From them you have two slightly different, but fantastic views of the Darran Mountains and the Ailsa Mountains, with the Hollyford Valley in between. The Ailsa Mountains look like a slender jawbone with sharp shark teeth protruding at varying angles, while the Darran Mountains look brutish and bulky, like the throne of a king of giants.

The Hollyford Valley and the Ailsa Mountains.

The road continues in a north-easterly direction, squeezed between intimidating mountain peaks. At one point you start wondering if the road is going to come to an end, because all you see in front of you is the valley ending in an almost vertical mountain wall. The road twists and turns for a while, and then you see it, the entrance to the Homer tunnel - a dark hole in the rock, dwarfed by the snow-topped mountain ridge above and the nearby waterfall formed by the melting ice.

The Homer tunnel pierces the Homer Saddle and is 1,2 km long. It is very crude, single lane, and unlit. In other words, a thrilling drive. Coming from Te Anau, the tunnel slopes downwards with the exit being 945 metres above sea level. From there the last kilometres to Milford (the name of the small settlement at the head of Milford Sound) are a fairly steep descent with parts of the leg being truly serpentine.

The serpentine road after passing through the Homer tunnel.

The last attraction before Milford is the Chasm; a kind of waterfall with perplexing rock formations formed through the hard work of constant flowing water. Depending on the volume of water in the stream at the time, you might mostly just see foaming white water, or a piece of stone art signed by Nature.

The head of Milford Sound, where Milford with its one hotel, cafe / restaurant / bar, hostel, airstrip and harbour lies, is about 15 km inland from the Tasman Sea. You can't see the open sea from Milford, but what you do see, is an astonishing view of sheer rock faces reaching over 1200 metres skywards, and sharply cutting into the shimmering surface of the narrow body of water separating one shore from another. The iconic Mitre Peak (1692 m) with its skewed summit dominates the left side of the fjord, while the right side boasts with the enthralling white cascade of the Bowen Falls and several behemoth mountain tops, like The Lion (1302 m), The Elephant (1518 m) and snow-covered Mt Pembroke (2000 m).

Iconic Mitre Peak above Giigan's head. The Elephant, the Lion and Mt Pembroke are the peaks in the distance to the right of Mitre Peak.

On our second trip to the fjord we were accompanied by Giigan's parents Jaakko and Eeva-Inkeri. Together with them we went on a 1½ hour cruise through Milford Sound. The weather was quite rough - cold and wet - but as the cruise ship set out the rain stopped and the cloud cover started breaking up. We were extremely lucky, since we were able to stand outdoors on the viewing deck almost all the time and could admire the many waterfalls that had formed after the rain. The ship took us all the way to the entrance of the fjord, where the angry Tasman Sea threw some hard gusts at us, before returning to harbour. On the way back the captain showered the bow of the ship in one of the permanent waterfalls in the fjord, and as the sun came out two rainbows appeared in the spraying mist.

Waterfalls after heavy rain.

We also saw about half a dozen bottlenose dolphins swim past the ship. They weren't in a playful mood so sadly we didn't see much of them. However, we were lucky to see them at all, because the dolphins don't visit Milford Sound that much anymore. It is believed to be a consequence of the popularity of the fjord as a tourist attraction (550,000 visitors/year): tourist ships from several different operators leave the Milford harbour every hour from early morning 'til late afternoon. On top of that, small aircraft and helicopters take off from the airstrip constantly, adding to the hullabaloo. In fact, Milford Sound is far from a silent spot on Earth. All of this is very sad, especially when many of the cruise ships are far from full. The 30 metre-or-so Milford Sovereign we were on could have taken a few hundred people, but there was only about 10 of us onboard. And at the same time two other, although smaller, ships also cruised through the fjord. No wonder the dolphins have retreated to calmer waters.

Milford Sound is without a doubt one of the top three destinations we've visited in NZ. It's remote, wild and stunningly impressive. It's like a focal point of all things beautiful in nature. It's one of those places on Earth, where you feel humble and tiny in the presence of the greater forces ruling this planet. The giant glacier that carved the mighty fjord may not have been the godly figure of Maori legend, but that doesn't mean veneration is out of place. After all, its footsteps have lain unperturbed for millennia...

MORE PICTURES from Milford Sound are available here.