Milford Sound

Milford Sound is a spectacular place of mountains carved by glaciers, colossal waterfalls but also long white ribbons cascading down the mountain faces, seals and birds and islands.  Captain Cook hadn’t sailed into the fjord because the hills gave the illusion that no water lay behind their rolls, yet they harbor a sheltered beauty discovered much later by a seal hunter.  When it rains, the place becomes a waterfall heaven, supporting the rain water as it slides down into the ocean below.  Majestic is the only way to capture this place in one word.

And the drive to the sound and the cruise ship that showed us around was just as beautiful.  Huge hollows gauged into mountains by glaciers were common.  The waterfalls were just as plenty and fed into a river made brilliant blue by the minerals in the surrounding rock.  New Zealand greenstone is found in abundance here and so was a very special and sacred place to the Maori.  It is now protected for its cultural significance, its geological beauties, and its ecological importance.  The forest parrot or kui, is a rare species found only here.  They are colorful big parrots but also cheeky things that love to tear the rubber right off of car windows, doors, and tires.  There was never a dull moment driving from Queenstown to Milford Sound and back and a trip that any new Zealand-bound visitor should make. 

This is the kea.  It's an endangered forest parrot.  There's nothing else like it in the world.  However, these are cheeky little birds that love to strip a car bare of its rubber and also peck the back of sheep and cow heads to death.

looking at the sheerest cliff in the sound.