Stray Bus Day 20 - Milford Sound

After a couple of nights in the party town of Queenstown, it was time to head off into the countryside once again. We booked ourselves on a bus to do the 'southern loop' heading towards Fjordland National Park and then back to Queenstown via Invercargill and Stewart Island. We set off at the crack of dawn on Thursday morning in order to get all the way down to Milford Sound for a cruise on the fjord at around 1pm. The drive down was spectacular. with numerous snowcapped mountains and crystal clear lakes along the way. We stoppped at a few scenic lookouts to take pictures and takes in the majestic views - some of which had been made famous by the Lord of the Rings films and also King Kong and Jurassic Park. We passed through the famous 'Homer Tunnel' only built during the 2nd world war, and opened up the area to vehicles. There is only 1 road into Milford and it is very windy and treacherous - and in winter there is a serious threat from avalanches! We arrived at Milford Sound at around 1pm and it was basking in glorious winter sunshine.

Our cruise took as all the way around the fjord and out to where it meets the sea. Fjords are a strange phenomenon - essentially a steep sided glacial trough is formed from the ice carving away the rock as it heads towards the coast, this then fills in with sea water forming a kind of lake that runs into the sea. Milford attracts an array of wildlife as freshwater from the mountain streams meets saltwater from the sea. The scenery on the cruise was breathtaking, although we seemed to be somewhat outnumbered by a coach load of Japanese tourists!

After the cruise we headed back down the Milford highway to Te Anau - the gateway to Fjordland National Park, and then onto the rural township of Tuatapere where we spent the night at a pleasant little lodge hostel in the middle of nowhere. We were taken down the road to visit one of the local farms where we were treated to a homemade meal of Tuatapere sausages, roast lamb and potatoes and then taken out onto the farm to experience some proper NZ farming. I got to drive a quad bike around the farm, and we watched some of the amazing sheep dogs in action and also some sheep shearers in action. There is a rich heritage of farming (particularly sheep) in this part of the world, but we quickly came to realise how much these people struggle to make a living nowadays and the art is sadly dying away because of the lack of money available.