Milford Sound

We came into the small bay of Milford Sound and the sun made an appearance, making the water in the bay sparkle. It is a very pretty bay its most famous landmark being Mitre Peak, a pyramid-shaped mountain rising 1692 metres straight from the deep fiord.

We thought it was best to seize the moment and try and get on a boat trip as soon as possible, just in case the weather didn’t hold out, and , with minutes to spare, we got on the 3 o’clock sailing, the last of the day.

We stood at the front of the boat in the sun, and were treated to fantastic views of the fiord. We past Bowen falls a huge waterfall (160m drop) , believed to be one of the world’s highest to rise directly out of the sea. We then travelled up the Arthur river towards the Tasman sea, and the mouth of the fiord. There were a number of waterfalls, coming down from the towering mountains either side of us.

We past mount Kimberley, a 1310m mountain, with a waterfall flowing from the top, and then through a narrowing called Copper Point, named for the copper present in the rock. Wind funnels through the area with gusts frequently exceeding 1000 knots/hr.

At Dale point, we were at the most northern point of the entrance to Milford Sound. From the open sea, the entrance is almost impossible to sight and explains why Captain Cook and whalers didn’t notice the opening for so long.

We came out into the Tasman sea and turned around to come back into the fiord again. As we turned about we noticed a ‘face’ of a man sleeping, on the cliff face, keeping guard of the mouth of the fiord. There were a number of areas on the rocks which were smooth, where trees have lost their grip and caused an avalanche of trees. The rocks will take up to 70 years to regain the tree growth on their slopes.

We past a number of seals led on the rocks at the foot of the mountains, sunning themselves. This was by Harrison Cove, the fiord’s most sheltered natural anchorage. Snow-melt from mount Pembroke enters the fiord via the Harrison River here. Mount Pembroke is Milford Sounds highest mountain, standing at 2014m, and on top of which you can see the remnants of the glacier that carved the fiord.

The trip was about 1.5hrs just long enough to get a feel for this beautiful area, and seeing it from the boat showed it off to its best advantage.

We stayed in the Milford Sound Lodge, (www.milfordlodge.com), on the river side, with fantastic views of the mountains and river. Our room for the night was a log cabin with a huge picture window from floor to ceiling, so we watched the sun go down whilst eating our dinner.