After our glow worm extravaganza and in light of the discussion with the Welsh lady in the shop that sold Possum goods, we called up and booked today’s Milford Sound trip. Against Swansea-lady’s advice we decided that although yesterday’s 40-minute return catamaran trip was nice (for some more than others), the total of 9 hours on various boats; first across Lake Manapouri and then the cruise on Doubtful Sound itself, in addition to an hour-long coach journey connecting the two waterways was just too much.
Milford Sound it was and to give me a day off the driving we’d booked with eco-tours to be taken by coach first to Te Anau bird park and then the 90kms to Milford sound for our 2 1/2-hour pre-dusk cruise.
The bird park was severely under-funded but still a good start to the day. We saw our first and only Takahe; a sweet, old, round pudding of a ground bird who apparently was nearing 100 years old and one of the last of her kind. They’re incredibly endangered since the introduction of carnivorous mammals (stoats, weasels etc.) by the Euopeans. There were also a few Kakas, the forest parrot and their much more mischievous cousins the Kea, the world’s only alpine parrot. We’d yet to see either of these in the wild so a good spot albeit in a cage.
Our driver for the day was expert in knowledge and swift of drive but unfortunately forgettable of name so I’ll call him Driver. We quickly covered the distance to the first stop on the stunning highway 94 drive up to Milford Sound to his explanation of how the land had been cultivated for farming by the Maori thousands of years ago. I forget precisely how but it was something to do with fires or tractors or something.
First stop, Mirror Lakes. These should really be called Mirror Ponds but a nice venue for a few arty pics and a 5 minute leg-stretch nonetheless. I thought how completely unbearable this must be when it’s thronging with 52-seater parties in the peak season and immediately felt grateful for our lone minibus and its 6 other (European) patrons.
As we entered Fiordland national park itself, Driver explained to us how pre-human New Zealand was an astonishing case study of how the world would have evolved if birds had been the dominant species. We enjoyed tales of 8 feet-high alpha birds that’d forgotten how to fly and an astonishing breadth of species on the island, birds being the only beasts able to reach and settle on it once detached from the prehistoric super-continent. Unfortunately, the crux of the point was that fat, waddling flightless birds were easier for Maori travelers to kill and eat, so even the bigguns went the way of the dodo.
Another interesting spot was a treeless section from the very top of the mountain, reaching about 100 metres in width, the site of a treevalanche. Not sure if its a real word but the effects were savage. Over centuries, thousands of trees, mosses and scrub fighting for even the slightest purchase on the rock faces became connected and tangled in each others’ root system. The more interdependent this net of roots became, the more precarious its position, needing only a few days of strong rain for the whole face to collapse as it had. The bare rock will remain for decades.
Toward the end of the drive we passed through the Homer Tunnel, it’s the point where the insane road builders could go up-and-over no more so blasted their way through, the interior of the bridge remains as roughly hewn as it was in the early 20th Century when they finished it. Stopping is forbidden on this section of Highway 94, thousands of tonnes of snow wait all year round for an avalanche catalyst on the shallow shelves far above. This area has one of the most advanced centres of vibration-sensing technology in the world but the relief was still palpable when Driver stopped 800 metres clear of the tunnel to allow a few pictures.
Clicking away carelessly we’d forgotten Driver’s earlier story about the Kea that stole a Scotsman’s passport from his bag. None of us had noticed the fat, clown-like parrot drop down next to the van and start nosing around. Like a short, befeathered MOT tester he waddled a complete circuit of the parked van. As oblivious to our clicking shutters as we’d been to his landing he completed his checks and left. I’m pretty sure I remember the latin name being cheekius-buggarius.
We reached the harbour and boarded our cruise. If you thought a naming faux pas was Terry Wogan calling out the wrong winner of a song for Europe in 2008 then you’ve not heard the story of how Milford Sound was discovered, mapped and named. Amazingly, despite naming all the other glacial inlets on that coast, Cpt. Cook missed it, mistaking it for a cove. Many years later a Welsh sealer popped in for some shelter and named it after his home port, Milford Haven. This was later changed to the more descriptive but completely wrong Milford Sound.
Annoyingly it’s not a Sound at all but technically a Fiord, having been ground out by millions of years of glacial activity rather than water erosion but who’s counting? All the fiords are wrongly named in the national park.
Another quiet night in Te Anau ended our time in the Fiordland National Park. With the promise of snowboarding, cider and steak we left for the bright lights of Queenstown.