Milford Sound (Piopiotahi) is a primeval, prehistoric place. Sharp, teethlike granite mountains rise 5,551 feet (1,692 m) directly from the ocean floor, neck-craners and jaw-droppers, framing a fjord holding oily-looking jade green water.
Tucked away in the southwest corner of New Zealand’s South Island, Milford Sound is part of Fiordland National Park, New Zealand’s largest national park (2.9 million acres/1.2 million ha), a wild area in the heart of Te Wāhipounamu- South West New Zealand, a Unesco World Heritage site.
Extract: A diver's guide to Milford Sound
05:00, Feb 06 2023
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Real Journeys’ Milford Wanderer.
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Real Journeys’ Milford Wanderer.
Milford Sound (Piopiotahi) is a primeval, prehistoric place. Sharp, teethlike granite mountains rise 5,551 feet (1,692 m) directly from the ocean floor, neck-craners and jaw-droppers, framing a fjord holding oily-looking jade green water.
Tucked away in the southwest corner of New Zealand’s South Island, Milford Sound is part of Fiordland National Park, New Zealand’s largest national park (2.9 million acres/1.2 million ha), a wild area in the heart of Te Wāhipounamu- South West New Zealand, a Unesco World Heritage site.
It rains 25 feet (7.6 m) a year here, and that rainfall is the key ingredient in the amplified alchemy of this otherworldly landscape. It’s critical to the lush flora that stubbornly clings to impossibly steep rock faces coursing with silver threads of waterfalls. It’s also critical to the bizarre marine life.
The rain strips tannins from the soil, layering tinted freshwater 30 feet (9 m) thick on the fjord’s saltwater, choking off light, tricking creatures of the deep into thinking they’re in hundreds of feet of water when they’re actually in 50 feet (15 m).
This area is home to the Milford Track, a 32-mile (53.5 km) trail known as the Finest Walk in the World. It is also a popular destination for day trips and overnight cruises. For divers, Milford Sound is somewhat of a fond secret. This marine reserve is off the beaten recreational dive track, but beloved by those in the know. It is a unique area, filled with life (from black coral forests to sevengill sharks to Fiordland crested penguins), making for unforgettable diving.
Milford Sound stretches roughly 10 miles (16 km) from Freshwater Basin to the Tasman Sea. It’s actually a fjord, rather than a sound (having been carved by glaciers, not rivers), that is nearly two miles (3 km) across at its widest point. The fjord runs more than 882 feet (269 m) deep, hemmed in by jagged peaks that are still being born. The Alpine Fault, one of the world’s major plate boundary faults, crosses the mouth of Milford Sound, shifting around two to three centimetres every year.
This is the wettest inhabited place in New Zealand, and one of the wettest on Earth. It rains an average of 182 days per year, which keeps the towering Lady Bowen Falls (531 feet/162 m), one of Milford’s two permanent waterfalls, in business. Milford Sound is located at the end of an adventurous road that winds through the Eglinton Valley (a golden tussock carpet flanked by mountains) before siphoning vehicles through the Homer Tunnel, a 0.8-mile (1.3 km) wormhole hewed largely by hand from solid granite.
(Tip: You might be lucky enough to spot kea en route. These intelligent birds are the only alpine parrots in the world, with brilliant orange colouring under their wings and curved beaks. You may catch them calmly dismantling your car or removing anything left unattended; do not feed them.)
There is plenty of hiking in this area, which is as hard as you want it to be. (Bear in mind that help can be difficult to come by in this remote place.) Day cruises are also popular and efficient ways to explore Milford Sound, like Southern Discoveries’ Encounter Nature Cruise on the Lady Bowen. This two- to three-hour trip takes place on one of the smaller boats running in the area, with an indoor seated area, outdoor viewing deck, and café serving up warming soup, coffee, and sandwiches (bring cash).