The Stickney Family Blog: 09 Feb - Milford Sound Cruise

The ins and outs of Milford Sound can be read HERE. The short story - an isolated sound on the southwestern section of the South Island surrounded by the highest sea cliffs in the world, just shy of 4,000 ft. There are two large permanent waterfalls and many others after the frequent rains. Kind of a win-win when you visit. You either get good weather or more waterfalls. It is also part of the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage Site and has been judged a world top travel destination.

We embarked on a standard day cruise - about 2 1/2 hours long. We were lucky with really nice weather and since it had been raining we still saw lots of waterfalls.

I'm going to continue with my standard practice of overloading the post with many pictures to try and get some of the scenery across and leave out most of the captions. The pictures generally follow us as we go around the loop.

Note, though, that in almost every picture of the cliffs there is a tour boat at the base. These boats are all in the 80 ft long range to help with a sense of scale. Also, helps to view when clicked through to the full size image.

Yellow line depicts our clockwise route from the ferry terminal, out to the mouth and return.

Right out of the terminal you pass Lady Bowen Falls, approximately 530 ft high and one of two permanent falls on the sound.

Not everyone is so enamored of the scenery

Or awake enough to take it all in

Some wildlife viewing. This was one of two groups of lounging seals on our tour.

Looking back into the sound as we head out of the mouth. Capt Cook first saw this entrance, but thought it was closed beyond this view. It was not discovered by Westerners for another 42 years.