Fjordland and Milford Sound

Our first glimpse of Fjordland. The glaciers created steep cliffs and U-shaped valleys.

We packed up the van after our night at Lake Te Anau and headed north into Fjordland towards Milford Sound. This was a bit daunting because the sandflies at the lake were rather intense and we had heard that the area we were entering had the worst sandflies in the country. As we entered the first major valley and caught a glimpse of the mountains, we got the feeling that something special lay ahead.

I once had a conversation with my brother Preston about this area after he visited years ago. I asked him what the single best spot in NZ was and he replied, "Milford Sound." I asked him why and he said something along the lines of, "I dunno, there are just a lot of steep mountains and stuff." I remembered wondering at the time what was so special about that.

The thing is, he was right. There just isn't any way to impart to you what this area is like. Everywhere you look, and I do mean everywhere, mountains rise straight up for more than a mile. You read that right. One mile, straight up. It's like something out of a fantasy novel. The cliffs are so sheer in most places that no earth clings to them; all of the rainwater (and there's plenty of that: it rains almost 200 days a year on average) cascades down the cliffs, creating waterfalls nearly a mile high.


Other waterfalls originate from the glaciers which are still perched atop these massive mountains. It was all I could do not to drive off of the road as I craned my neck out the window, trying to get a look at the mind-boggling scenery.


There are no real towns in this area of the country. This makes good sense because there's just enough flat land for a single road to snake through the mountains, and the sandflies are indeed awful. The main destination for people visiting fjordland is Milford Sound, which isn't really a sound at all because it's a fjord. Sounds are big valleys carved by rivers which fill with seawater; fjords are big valleys carved by glaciers which fill with seawater. The guys who named this place took their best guess but they happened to guess wrong; the name stuck anyway.

Once we arrived at Milford Sound we booked passage on one of the many scenic cruises in the area. The captain acted as the tour guide and did a wonderful job of teaching us about the geography of the fjord. We saw a "hanging valley" formed by one glacier emptying into an existing fjord; this created a waterfall 500 feet high which sounds impressive except that the wall of rock next to it continues straight up for another 4,700 feet or so. The fjord itself is half a mile deep, meaning that the glaciers which carved these valleys had to be impressive indeed.

Quinn checking things out on the cruise.

Above: The 500 foot high waterfall is that tiny looking thing near the bottom of the picture. The waterfall comes out of the "hanging valley" and you can see its characteristic U-shape. Look closely and you'll see a 3-story cruise ship at the bottom right of the pic, which shows you the scale.

It's tough to make out, but the horizontal striations in the cliffs show where the glacier pressed against the rock.

Amy and Quinn on the cruise.

After our tour we headed back south towards the coast, camping as soon as we reached flat land. The campsite was gorgeous; we were right next to a beautiful stream and surrounded by a beech forest with those monstrous mountains looming in the distance.

The view from our campsite.

Quinn and me before the sandflies hit.

It was here, in this idyllic setting, that the funniest moment of the trip occured. Around dusk the sandflies came out in force. They were terrible. If you opened the door of the van even for a second, a dozen of those bastards would invade and bite everyone in sight. We therefore decided to stay in the van until morning.

This was cool until Amelia announced that she needed to pee. It sounds like a little thing, right? Just take the kid outside for a minute and let her pee. This would have resulted in dozens of painfully itchy bites for everyone in addition to a sleepless night spent swatting at mosquitos and sandflies. We therefore decided to let her pee in a piece of tupperware which we used to store cleaning supplies. Amelia did a fine job peeing in the tupperware but she neglected to inform us that she also needed to poo; we discovered this in due course and the resulting situation was so bad that we couldn't help but laugh.

Our camping spot. Pic taken prior to the Tupperware Poo Incident.

Next up: the Catlins, a bluegrass festival at the bottom of the world, and a close encounter with a sea lion.