Tao 12: South Island 5 – Milford

Drive from Queenstown to Milford Sound is over 300km.  There’s a tunnel between the town of Te Anau and Milford Sound.  Just before the tunnel is a spot where John told us that we would be sure to see Keas.  It was raining hard again when we got to the spot, so we didn’t keep our hopes up.  But lo and behold, there are two of them right there.  We didn’t stay long because of the rain, and decided to visit again on our way back.

Driving to Milford Sound

A Kea getting a bit wet

We stayed in Milford Sound Lodge.  They were out of double rooms so we took 2 beds in a 4-bed dorm.  Luckily no one else came so we had the room to ourselves.  It rained hard for the entire night, I wished that we would have a sunny day tomorrow.  The odds are not good.  This area had on average over 200 days of rain in a year.

My wish for good weather were granted, but only partially.  The rain stopped in the morning, but the sky was overcast.  It’s an improvement. We drove to the docks to have a first look at the sound.

Milford Sound on a overcast day

A cruise ship waiting to embark

A ship returning to port

More rain was in the forecast, so we decided to get on a cruise when we could.  Our boat leaved port promptly at 9:15.  The view was not bad, but nothing to write home about.  We got a discount for early departure and bad weather.  That helped lower our expectations as well.  We did see some fur seals resting on rocks.

Our captain busy steering the boat

Our ship heading out to sea

Tracy staying warm inside with hot coffee

Smoky mountains alone the sound

Two sleepy fur seal pups

A sleepy fur seal pup

It's cold outside, so she's content and happy staying inside.

I do not envy these guys, it will start raining soon

This is our ship from Jucy Cruises

True to the forecast it started raining again shortly after we got off the boat.  We walked a couple of short walking tracks in the rain, then stayed in the lodge’s comfortable reading room for the rest of the day.

Low cloud hanging over our lodges

The reading room is warm and spacious

Day two brought promising changes.  We finally saw blue sky.  The Sound looked both gorgeous and mysterious in the early morning light.

On the drive to Te Anau we stopped at the Chasm to admire the deep gorges and grotesque rock formations carved by water over the ages. We met Kea #3 in the parking lot here.  These birds were not called Clowns of the Mountain for nothing.  They really cracked us up.

Forest trail to the Chasm

Water flowing around smooth, holed rocks

K3 checking out the content of the car, there's also a guy inside afraid to come out

K3 proceeded to remodel this car

A waterfall close to tunnel entrance

Back again at the tunnel entrance, we had six Keas climbing all over our car, pulling on everything soft.  A couple of them tried hard to dismember our windshield wipers.  One bird almost managed to pull out an entire strip of rubber from the top of the car before Tracy stopped it.  It was actually a lot of fun watching them walking around clumsily and try to wreak some havoc whenever you are not watching.

Keas do have pretty feathers, you only see them when they fly

Dew on the flowers made them look golden

A bus load of Taiwanese tourists pulled over next to us.  One lady asked if those birds were ours.  It might be fun to own one, but no one can handle six of these guys.  Luckily our car didn’t suffer any major damage.

Having had our fun with the Keas, we went on to climb Key Summit.

A map shaped like a metal compass on top of Key Summit

The top of the summit is windy, but the view is unbelievable.  At this point I’m at a lost for words to describe what we see.  Of course, this never happens to Tracy, she described the view as “beautifully beautiful”.

That spike of a mountain singlehandedly blocked the clouds from moving east

Enjoying a snack on top of Key Summit

Site of a recent avalanche

Tracy frowns at the newly christened Lake Tracy

Lichen on rock

Same could be said for many places on our way back to Te Anau.