Milford Sound - New Zealand
Tuesday, January 16 2007 @ 11:26 PM | Contributed by:
Oliver | Views: 882
 Milford Sound is one of the most spectacular, but least accessible places in New Zealand. Why? Because the spectacular thing are the mountains, and it is raining there 2 days out of three which hides them. Further, you have to take a longer drive to get there and its away from any civilization. There are only two accomodations, most of which are completely booked out during the high season, and they are more for campers than for luxury-expecting people. Nevertheless its worth the visit. The mountains there rise 1500 meters, which does not sound much, given that there are over 2600 high meters in NZ, but they rise directly from sealevel. And since it rains so much and since there is no soil on the rocks that could hold the water, there is a constant cascade of water coming down everywhere. |
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| The combination with water and mountains is amazing. There are so many peaks around you that you quickly loose overview. There are several companies that offer cruises through the sound, and there are several long (6 days!), famous hikes through the place. Given the amount of rain it was not our thing to hike there. |
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| On the third image, you can see a boat as refference to the size of the peak above. |
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| There are some permanent cascades that have a significant size. The first two images show the Lady Bowen waterfalls. |
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| Some of them seem to be very small on a picture but they are quite huge. Since the height here is above 20 meters, the thin stream of water becomes is actually big. On the mountains around Milford, a huge number of cascades can be seen during rain. This thrid image is taken near the Tunnel leading to Milford sound. |
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| Despite the huge mountains, many smaller details should not be missed. A seal colony is there, so-calld "Christmas Trees" with beautiful red flowers and interesting overhanging stones with moss and many minerals inside. |
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| There is an "Underwater Observatory" at which you can be dropped off on the cruises. The interesting thing is that the rain falling in Milford sound is creating a layer of sweet water above the salt water coming in from the sea. The tannins and algae in the sweet water create a thick layer of darkness on the salt waterer below. The result is a underwater life in 8 meters depth that is equal to 40 meters elsewhere. So stepping into a tube that is below the sweet water level gives you an interesting insight into something for what you would have to get a serious diving training otherwise. You can see the "black corals" (Pic 1) that are actually white since they are covered with many small organisms that make them look white. |
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Milford Sound is one of the most spectacular, but least accessible places in New Zealand. Why? Because the spectacular thing are the mountains, and it is raining there 2 days out of three which hides them. Further, you have to take a longer drive to get there and its away from any civilization. There are only two accomodations, most of which are completely booked out during the high season, and they are more for campers than for luxury-expecting people. Nevertheless its worth the visit. The mountains there rise 1500 meters, which does not sound much, given that there are over 2600 high meters in NZ, but they rise directly from sealevel. And since it rains so much and since there is no soil on the rocks that could hold the water, there is a constant cascade of water coming down everywhere.
