The road to Milford Sound is a bit like the Great Ocean Road, funded by the government during the depression, and essentially just a nice road to drive along. The main feature of the road is the Homer tunnel, hand-carved through what looked like a lot of very hard rock, and at a steep decline that runs for about 1km in the dark. On our way out we saw some crazy cyclists about to cycle up it, not my idea of fun! (Dad, did you do that?!)
The Milford sound, or more accurately Milford Fiord can only really be seen by boat, and from the plethora of tours, we chose the one that went the furthest and had free soup. As soon as we left port, the Mitre Peak dominated the skyline, all 6000+ft (that’s 1.5 Ben Nevis’) of it that rises nigh on vertically from the sea. Heading out to sea, the hills were lower and rounder as we had passed over the fault line between the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates (could be wrong there…), with the sharp tall peaks on one plate, and the lower hills on another – geology in action! The whole of New Zealand is geologically new and has loads of earthquakes – can’t wait to experience one, as long as it’s not too big!