NZ Adventures #12: When a Sound is Really a Fjord, Who Cares?

Earth Date:  Sunday, November 25, 2018

Driving through cascade-tastic valleys?
Yeah. Whatever.

It's Milford Sound Day!  It really should become an official holiday.  Not sure how Hallmark would work with that one, and while I want everyone to marvel in the majesty of Milford, I don't want them to on the same day.  It's a pickle.

Anyways, it's one of the places I've been jonesing to see, but it's also a really long day of driving, and we know how Jayme's felt about driving.  Not that I blame him.  Plus, he's a tough customer and is just so-so intrigued.  I'm hoping the Sound will wow him.

We have a tour booked at 12:45pm, so we head out early for an almost four hour drive to Piopiotahi, aka Milford Sound.

To the Sound that's really a fjord.  But really, it's so beautiful, who cares.  Well, maybe the marine biologist people, but the regular ol' tourist persons like us don't really care.  We just want to ooo and ahh, and gaze up in awe at the majestic heights and spritely waterfalls.

Milford Sound is a fjord in Fiordland National Park.

- A sound is a large ocean inlet.
- A fjord is a narrow ocean channel forged by the formation and recession of glaciers characterized by steep, vertical walls and a flat ocean floor.

We didn't get a close look at the ocean floor, but we can validate that the valley walls were pretty steep and vertical.  Steep, vertical and majestic.  Really, majestic is the best word for a place like Milford Sound.

The Drive

But first, the journey is it's own kind of majestic...

To get to Milford Sound, we drove through lovely pastures, foot hills, beech forest and finally up into cascade-tastic valleys of waterfalls to Homer tunnel and out the other side to more beautiful scenery.

Homer Tunnel is a 1.2km pass through the Darran mountain range.  It was started in 1935 and completed in 1954.  Thank you to the hard working folk who blasted through the range to open up the road to Milford.

It's one-lane, so we lined up with all the other rides to wait our turn.  Which really just offered a nice stretch-your-legs break and opportunity to capture the falls vaulting down the valley walls.

The drive to the Sound is a funny area.  You're driving through craggy wilderness with a line of cars, then all the sudden parking!  NZ has carved out a few cramped parking spaces and a commercial boat dock for the five or so tourist companies offering tours of the Sound.  And that's pretty much it.  Beauty + tourist trap boat docks.

Milford Sound

But it's really all about this...

The cruise was awesome, awe-inspiring and wonderful.  They take you right under some of the wispy falls.  They also offer factoids about the sights.  But you know how pilots often sound during their flight announcements -- like Charlie Brown's teacher?  That's about what the Captain sounded like.  But I'm sure the info was helpful and fascinating.
















Seal Rock is a fave basking zone for fur seals, and this day they were out in full force enjoying the sunshine.

Lady Bowen Falls

The two permanent falls are Lady Bowen Falls and Stirling Falls.

Lady Bowen Falls is fed by Bowen River which flows through the northern Fiordlands and drops 531 feet into the Sound.  A cool factoid:  the Falls provides hydroelectric power for the tiny Milford Sound settlement.

Stirling Falls leaps off a valley between the Lion and Elephant Mountains.

The other falls find their ways down the cliffs shifting into new patterns as they make new paths.

Stirling Falls

Those wispy falls over the lovely striations in the cliff face... /sigh

The cruise was an hour and 45 minutes; the drive was four hours.  It was worth it:

I hope Grumpy, I mean Jayme, also agrees.

Pictures don't do Milford Sound one bit of justice.  God did a really good thing when he forged this place. 

Goodbye Milford Sound/Fjord.  You are lovely.














Any sights along the way?  Sure, but we are not stopping.  Nope.  We were on a mission to and from Milford Sound.  I complained, "but you said we could stop on the way back." "What I said was 'that the sights would be there on the way back.'"  Devious semanticist.

Whatever.  I will take pictures.

Lovely views along Hwy 94/Te Anau Milford Hwy

Tomorrow, we are headed to Christchurch to see Jeremy and Matt, leaving one final episode.

NZ Adventures #9: Waterfalls in Haast Pass

Earth Date:  Thursday, November 22, 2018

Agenda:  Frans Josef ➜ Haast Pass ➜ Wanaka

Warning:  This post contains explicit videos of stunning scenery and bewitching waterfalls.  May not be suitable for curmudgeons.  Oh wait...

We are on day nine.  We are tired and it's starting to show.  We take our time heading out.  We have a lovely, but long drive (3.5 hours is a long drive on an island) through Mount Aspiring National Park to Wanaka (we say Wan-a-ka, because we 'mericans down here in the south pro-nou-nce things pho-net-ic-al-ly + a few add-i-tion-al syl-la-bles).  But, our friends laughed at us.  It's Wah-na-ka.  Yes, you see our difficulty.

Anyways, today is waterfall day.  Because, like unicorns, you just can't have too many waterfalls.  It's physically impossible.

We pass Fox Glacier and tip our proverbial hats, then pass on by.  

But, as weary as we are, I'm in the zone of #wemustseeallthethings... every possible thing in NZ.  So we turn off Highway 6 at Fox Glacier heading towards the coast to Lake Matheson, which supposedly on very magical days offers a stunning view of Mount Cook reflected in the perfect lake.  It's partly cloudy.  I'm an idealist.  Plus I read there's a great gift shop.  All those folks from Frans-Josef, they have the exact same idealism, and finding parking was an adventure of it's own.  Which just makes us more tired.  We get as far as the cafe and gift shop, note all the tourists also looking for the awesome pic, and decide we should just be on our way.  I resolve to rein in my #wemustseeallthethings neurotic completer/finisher disposition.

Haast Pass

It's back to Highway 6 to make our way south, passing through inland forest at the base of the Southern Alps then drifting back towards the coast, for lovely views.  At some point Hwy 6 has become Haast Highway.  I mean it's still Highway 6, but it's also Haast Highway, which is code for "there will be many waterfalls you'll want to see along this road."  I like Haast better, it's brief.  Thank you, NZ.

First stop is King's Point Lookout, just as the "highway" turns along the coast.

Hello, gorgeous.  It's also relevant to note that Knight's Point was named after the fur-friend (that's what Jayme calls them) of the surveyor who worked on the Haast Highway construction team back in the 50s.  Huzzah.  In addition to the views of azure waters and lush foliage available at Knight's Point, tourists stop especially to visit the monument erected to celebrate the completion of the "highway" connecting Westland and Otaga.   It's an obelisk (that means it's a phallic shape).  We neglected to get a picture of it, because, I don't know -- azure waters next to azure sky framed by lush, green foliage vs recently-erected obelisk.

And we're walking... back to the car to make a stop at Ship Creek.  Haast has promised the waterfalls, just wait.  Geez, greedy much?  Can't we enjoy the lovely blue waters and tropical forest first?

This is supposedly what the natural shoreline of New Zealand was like before the trusty Europeans altered the vegetation to suit their fancy and settled in.   It's an ancient kahikatea swamp forest.  Kahikatea is a coniferous tree native to New Zealand.

We climbed a rickety tower trading off use of the ladder to go up or down with the bus tourists that also stopped for a look-see.  Because it's a tower and we should climb it.  Plus, the views were beautiful.

It's at Ship Creek where we also make the acquaintance of sand flies, and we really didn't care for them.  They bite, and it's itchy.  As soon as we noticed our legs were covered in them, we decided it was time to haasta la bye (#seewhatIdidthere?)

And we're driving... heading inland towards the Southern Alps and Mount Aspiring National Park.  What a cool name for a park.  It's named after the landmark peak in the park, you guessed it, called Mount Aspiring.  Māori Peoples call it Tititea (glistening peak). Ancient  glaciers shaped it into a rough four-sided pyramid.

We won't see Mount Aspiring up close, as we skirt the northern end of the park towards Lake Wanaka and by lake Hawea.  But first, waterfalls.

Roaring Billy Falls

And now we're walking... towards Roaring Billy Falls.

Do you see it?  Yes, thanks, it's a cool hat.  But we're focused on the waterfall, Friend.

It's a cascade-type waterfall, falling 30 meters to the Haast River.  Amazing turquoise waters.  Yet there's more... let's go!

Thunder Creek Falls

Thunder Creek Falls is a 28 meter high horsetail-type waterfall that is the end-point of Thunder Creek as it falls majestically into the Haast River.

The Haast River canyon was formed as Haast Glacier melted about 20,000 years ago.  Melting ice gouged out the canyon, also smoothing it to create the river area, carrying rock and debris downstream.

Check.  Another gorgeous waterfall.  And now we enter the majestic Gates of Haast as we wind our way slowly toward Wanaka.  Prepare for wonder and amazement:

BAM!  The Gates of Haast.

And now another waterfall.

Fantail Falls

Fantail Falls is neat.  It's a 23 meter segmented-type waterfall fed by Fantail Creek.  While likely named after the creek, I can see a fantail shape there.  Or maybe the creek was named after the waterfall.  An interesting tidbit about this waterfall:  it was used for hydroelectric power as they were building  the Haast Pass road.  There was a waterwheel at the base of the falls at one time.  

But you know what's also cool about Fantail Falls?

The little cairns people create with the river stones when they visit.  We added our touches, too, and it kinda felt like you were adding to the peaceful, fascinating landscape.

The river here is clear, calm and lovely.  Peaceful.  Oh, I said that already.  Is it naptime?  zzzzzz

Sadly, the land of the waterfall has come to a close.  We're on to Blue Pools.

Blue Pools of Haast

A pretty green-blue pool is what you get when sunlight refracts on the icy-cold, snow-fed waters of the Blue River.  At the Blue Pools, the Blue River meets the Makarora River after flowing the entire length of Mount Aspiring National Park.

A swing bridge spanned the gorge with tremendous views into the Blue River Canyon.

Folks frolicked on the small beach, stacking rocks and wading into the lovely waters.  

We trekked around a bit, then headed back to the car, ready to head into Wanaka.  We have about an hour's drive ahead of us.

It's lovely views from every angle as we made our way through the eastern side of Mount Aspiring National Park on highway 6.

We come to Lake Wanaka, then shortly after, Lake Hawea, which is separated from Lake Wanaka by a thin strip of land called The Neck.  On through farmland to Wanaka, where we discover a neat condo, where we can wash clothes and rest up.  Plus, this view from the back windows...

My goal is to veg on the couch looking out at this lovely scene.  Peace out.

Tune in to see just how much vegging occurs on our rest day, here.