When researching New Zealand one place popped up time and time again, the Milford Sound - we knew we couldn't miss it out but what was the best way to see it? The most popular options seems to be a day trip from Queenstown or Te Anu, combining a bus journey and a cruise; the stops all planned out, the only decision to make being which company to go with. The fancy can travel by helicopter, seeing the Sounds from above, away from the great unwashed that flock to the boats. There's even an option to bus in and fly out, cutting down transport time for those in a rush. We decided to forgo the bus and travel under our own steam, heading down the night before, camping in one of the many DOC sites along the Milford Road before going on a cruise the next day.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t an easy decision to make - when researching our options there was also many warnings mixed in with the descriptors of its beauty. From May to September all vehicles have to carry snow chains to help traverse the steep, narrow, windy roads that might be coated with ice and snow, in all seasons there’s the danger of avalanches and landslides. As we were going in April and I felt fairly confident in my skills, we decided to drive - and I’m glad we did - but I wouldn’t like to drive there in the winter.
As for cruises there was many options, not only in cruise companies - which there are lots - but in the specific cruises themselves. I decided on Southern Discoveries' “Discover More cruise” for a few reasons; they are the original Milford Sound cruise (and still going so they must do something right), it was one of the longest options at 3 hours and included a trip to the underwater observatory which sounded pretty unique.
When we first saw the boat it seemed tiny compared to those that had just departed and I have to admit we were a bit disappointed, we thought it would be over-crowded and we wouldn’t get a good view… we were happy to be proved wrong. Not only was it fairly quiet, with us managing to get the back open air section pretty much all to ourselves but the smaller boat managed to get closer to the walls of the Milford Sound and the waterfalls too.
We set off from the docks on pretty much on time, headed off to what I’m inelegantly going to call the left side of the Milford Sound. From here we got a good look of our first waterfall of the journey (on the right side), Bowen Falls; an impressive 161 meter tall waterfall that is not only the largest of the permanent waterfalls in the Milford Sound but hydroelectrically provides the village with power and is the only source of drinking water.
We skirted along a sheer granite rock face that was carved out by a melting glacier 15,000 – 75,000 years ago, spotting glints of gold within the rock, as we made our way to the four sisters, a collection of waterfalls we were only able to see due the rain the past few days. We sailed past the hanging gardens, copper point and fairy falls all before we made it the entrance of the Tasman bay.
Here we were lucky to be joined by a small pod of bottle nose dolphins who played in the wake of the boat before heading off to delight another ship with their antics. On the way back down the right side of the sound we saw seals snoozing on the rocks and even more temporary waterfalls trickling their way down the rock face to join the bottle green water below.
The waterfall in which our small vessel really came into it’s own was Stirling falls in which our Captain - who’s lively commentary so far included delights such as “Is that a seagull riding a dead possum in the water to the right?!”- drove us into the waterfall. The icy cold waters cascaded over the prow of the ship and anyone brave enough to stand there. Even from our vantage point in the back, the water misted down coating our sunglasses in beads of water.
The underwater observatory was an interesting addition to the trip. Set 10 meters under the surface, the observatory allowed us to watch fish in their natural habitat, as they freely swam up to the observation windows before heading off on their way. Not only was the observatory rife with fish facts, it also told the story of how the homer tunnel was built and explained how the Milford sound is in fact a Fiord - as it was created via glacial melt. After around 30 minutes spent exploring the site it was time to head back to the boat and back to Milford Sound Village.
Once the cruise was over, we slowly walked the fifteen minutes to the free carpark on the outskirts of the village so we could hop in the van and get ourselves to a campsite before it got too dark. I was initially apprehensive about whether our old van was going to be able to heave it’s way back up the steep steep hill to the homer tunnel and beyond, but my fears were unfounded and we zoomed our way up and before we knew it we were back at Cascade creek where we’d be spending the night.
I really enjoyed our time in the Milford Sound and the way we went about it, I can see the merit of going the bus route or even going by air if pressed for time - if your entire trip is only three weeks spending what amounted to three whole days slowly traveling there and back wouldn’t be good use of time - but for us this was perfect.
Trip date : April 2023
Next up : Is Queenstown really worth the hype?
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