13.04.2018 Milford Sound

We drove to Te Anau on Thursday and arriving there, the car shut down again due to a lack of coolant. That problem was quickly solved and we had time to do some shopping. We spent the evening with some more planning and talking to Amelia, an American girl from our room (she was amazingly sweet).

The next day, we woke up early to get to Milford Sound for our cruise. The drive there is one of the most scenic drives in New Zealand, we stopped lots of times for photos of the landscape and other sights: Te Anau Downs, Eglington Valley, Mirror Lakes, the Chasm and Lake Gunn just to name a few, we also had to drive through Homer’s Tunnel (which is a very special experience in itself, especially with that car).

 

We arrived at the cruise terminal just in time and boarded the boat to explore Milford Sound (which is a Fjord and not a Sound btw, because it was formed by a glacier and not just by the sea, resulting in a U-shape – hah, now I even got to be a smart ass on my blog). While on the boat, we got to see some most adorable fur seals, amazing views of Milford Sound obviously, lots of tiny waterfalls and a few bigger ones. We drove almost directly underneath one of the falls and our guide told us, that its mist is supposed to make you look 10 years younger (that’s why I went inside rather quickly, I don’t really fancy looking 8 years old to be honest). We were also told that when there is a landslide on one of the very steep sides sides of the fjord, it takes 150 (!) years for the forest to get back to it’s original state.