09 Feb - Te Anau to Milford Sound

We had a Milford Sound cruise booked in the early afternoon so we were up and out early, not knowing what to expect in the way of traffic. Milford Sound is New Zealand's most visited sight (up to a million people per year) and there is only one two lane road in and out.


The road follows Lake Te Anau for a while and then heads up the Eglinton Valley, past scenic mountain lakes into the Hollyford Valley, through a sporty one lane tunnel called the Homer Tunnel and then down into Milford Sound.

The road trip in is spectacular. We were in kind of a hurry due to our cruise time, but even with quick stops to jump out and look at views we couldn't pass up and knowing we'd see it all again on the way back out we took 125 pictures on the two hour drive. Fjordland is the location of Fangorn Forest in the Lord of the Rings Movies if this helps anybody calibrate. Kim and I haven't seen the movies (go ahead and make that face everyone does when we say that).

This and the next couple of posts will be stuffed with pictures as I'll uncontrollably try to get across the level of scenery. It helps to click on the images and open them full size. No way to do it justice, but anyway.

Looking up the Elington Valley towards the Fjordland mountains

Hollyford River

Fjordland gets a ton of rain as the prevailing westerlies hit the mountains. The cliffs are covered in waterfalls.

Just everywhere you turn

A giant hunk of rock along the way

This was the overlook as we turned out of the Hollyford Valley and towards the Homer Tunnel

View from same spot looking up another valley - same valley in first Google Earth picture below

This was a view up adjoining Gertrude Valley

Google Earth has great 3-D rendering of Fjordland. I pulled these images to try and evoke the scale of the mountains. The purple line is the road at 1,800 ft in elevation. The peak to the right is approximately 8,000 ft in elevation.

Depiction of Homer Tunnel

We pulled into the Milford Lodge and assigned this RV spot. Ok, I guess it will do.

Kim and Zach run off to check the view

Close up of the waterfalls on the cliff

Here's the river running alongside the mountain above

Looking left from the campsite

We were just about a half mile from the Milford Sound Airport. Look closely and you can see the helicopter on downwind. Sporty.

As usual, there was no traffic so we arrived in time to let the boys grab some lunch and play before heading down to the cruise terminal.