Milford Sound- Wow!

See the how tiny the ship looks? It's not tiny.

Mirror Lake-

The reflection

Milford Sound is the most well known tourist destination in New Zealand, and I think with quite good reason. It's phenomenal. Milford Sound is one of the many fjords in Southern New Zealand that was formed by glaciers during the last ice age. The cliffs rise 4000 feet or more straight out of the water. The scenery from the water is breath-taking and it makes one feels Lilliputian in comparison.

We drove 4 hours from Queenstown to Milford, and then boarded a boat for a 2 hour cruise. The drive to Milford was incredibly impressive itself, and the landscape approaching Milford is among the most majestic I have ever seen. We stopped for a picnic en route, and just happened upon an isolated and glorious setting. I really don't think I could've dreamt up a more beautiful spot for a picnic.

We were quite fortunate getting a sunny day in Milford as it rains 90% of the time. It's actually considered one of the wettest places in the world. This rain helps to create the numerous waterfalls we saw, in every direction we looked.

We came across seals sunning themselves several times, but once again the dolphins evaded us. We also visited the underwater observatory to see the rare black coral that lives in the sound. It's actually white, and usually only grows at great depths, but due to features unique to Milford you can see it much shallower.

On the drive back to Queenstown, I was in awe at the number of sheep we passed. It's often joked that there are 100x as many sheep as people in New Zealand (the number is actually 10x as many). But in this remote part of NZ, I feel sure that we saw about 500x as many sheep as we did people. Also, we passed many cattle and deer farms (for venison, I presume).

Driving into Queenstown along a perilous cliff overlooking enormous Lake Wakitipu with the Remarkable Mountain range framing it, I found myself thinking that Pacific Coast Highway has nothing on Highway 6...