Milford Unsound

When we are in New Zealand a decade ago (yes, over a decade ago… sigh getting old) we visited Doubtful Sound and spent overnight on a ship. We heard of Milford Sound at the time but went for what was billed as the “less popular” sound. This time we figured we might as well see why Milford was more popular.

Real Journeys runs the overnight cruises and they really organised everything for us, including a 5 minute taxi ride from our hotel to meet up with the coach in central Queenstown. The journey time takes about 4:30 to get from Queenstown to Milford Sound and crazily, there are many more people who do it as a day trip out of Queenstown. 9 hours on the coach and about an 1:30-1:45 in the Sound before you head back. That sort of crazyniness we didn’t need. So we left Queenstown at a leisurely 10:00 and started making our way.

How to fill 4 and a half hours though of a coach journey? We were a little worried, but the coach seats were very comfortable, with big windows and even the top of part of the coach was glass as well. We later found out that Real Journeys designed these themselves to make sure people had a good experience on the these sorts of scenic trips. Still even a comfortable seat isn’t good enough. Well our driver filled the time. He had a great sense of humour and was bristling with information from the history of Queenstown through to the flora and fauna through-out the drive. He had us chuckling to ourselves and enjoying our journey. It really made the 4:30 pass super quickly.

We thought we were a bit unlucky with the weather. It was mostly showers the whole way there, and the weather was getting worse the closer we got to the Sound. Our driver was extolling the weather though, saying that it was the best weather to see Milford in. We weren’t 100% sure if he was being serious or sarcastic. We decided to wait and judge for ourselves, but feeling like it would be horrible going out on deck would be a waste.

On our way there, the closest town to Milford Sound is Te Anau (pronounced tea-aw-now). Right in the centre of town there is a big blue bird and our driver said, before letting us off to have our lunch, “get a selfie with the big blue bird because I will tell you about it later and you will be sad if you don’t have a selfie after I tell you about it.” So dutifully we ignored him (but our journey back we also stopped in Te Anau, so we grabbed a picture then.

The bird is called a takahē and it was extinct. While the takahē had started to decline after the Polynesian settlement of the area, as the rats they brought caused problems but also they were hunted for food. After the Europeans arrived, further changes to the environment and the introduction of the stoat decimated the population. In 1898 the last known takahē was unsuspectingly shot and killed. One it was realised what it was though it was stuffed and put on display.

A local doctor, Geoffrey Orbell, who was a keen tramper and hunter, set out to try to find the takahē and in November 1948, in a remote part of the Murchison Mountains mountains he came across 3 of the extinct birds. The Department of Conservation came in and discovered that the last remaining group of 18 were there and set about a breeding program. It was discovered that this particular sub-species had adapted to the rough and desperate alpine conditions by having two eggs but choosing only one to raise. So carefully the conservationists could steal one egg without causing any issues with the natural population. So a captive breeding programme ensued, thought that too ran into problems, since breeding and courting appears to be a learned activity in the takahē and so they found they needed to re-introduce the takahē to other wild populations early enough so they could learn how to breed.

We continued our trip out of Te Anau towards Milford Sound. While the Maori knew of Milford Sound, there were really no settlements as the location was not really hospitable. Milford Sound was basically ignored by Captain Cook, as the entrance to the Sound makes it look like it is just a shallow bay and it took until 1812 and a Welshman named John Grono to discover Milford. Because of its spectacular beauty it quickly became a symbol of New Zealand and of “strategic importance” to the New Zealand government to have a land crossing to the Sound. This was far easier said and done. Essentially every path into Milford Sound had at some point sheer cliff edges which no road could be forged. An overland route was identified by William Homer in 1889 but it required a significant tunnel right through one of the mountains. It took until the Great Depression, when the New Zealand government, like a lot of other governments in the world, started big public infrastructure works to employ people that the first road and the Homer Tunnel got built.

While the tunnel is currently wide enough to take two vehicles side by side, during the busy season (which is essentially all year round now) they reduce it to one way traffic, so you have to wait several minutes for your turn to go through the tunnel. This led to one of the encounters I was most looking forward to in New Zealand… The kea! Kea are the world’s largest and smartest parrot and I absolutely love them. They are as smart as a dog, but for more mischievous and curious. They like to rip the rubber out of car windows and windscreens and chew it, just because it is good fun!

They hang around both sides of the tunnel entrances because “key, there are people which are interesting and these people sometimes have food and food is good, and even if there isn’t food, there are lots of other things to play around with”.

A common theme in New Zealand is that kea were pretty much hunted to extinction. There was a 100 year law that allowed farmers to kill kea, through to the 1970s. Keas being curious as they are would land on sheep. Why, because it is fun, especially because the sheep would get startled and sometimes run off, which is really good fun. What is even more fun is that sheep have these sort of fatty haunches and well fat tastes good, so the kea would nibble on the haunches of the sheep, the sheep would get infections and die. It is unclear how many sheep actually died from kea assault, but it was more than enough to allow the government sponsored bird-o-cide. Needless to say, it is totally illegal to kill a kea (or keep one as a pet). There are currently less than 5,000 birds in the wild. Some estimates say there are may be as few as a 1,000.

After you pass through the Homer Tunnel, you still have about 45 minutes down a narrow winding road to get to the docks of Milford Sound. We continued to have on and off rain throughout the journey and the wind was really starting to pick up. It wasn’t going to look like it was going to be a wonderful trip. Our driver reminded us though that this was the “best weather” for seeing the Sound. Once we boarded the ship and got underway, we started to see what he meant.

The pictures can’t actually really do it justice, because it was actually quite dark and gloomy, but there were hundreds and hundreds of waterfalls. There is really no soil in Milford Sound. The trees you see on the sides of cliffs are actually being held there by the other trees, with complex interconnected root systems. In fact, just like in the winter, you can get snow avalanches, you can often get tree avalanches, where whole sections of trees will just tumble down the cliff edge laying bare huge parts of the cliff faces. With windy and wet weather, you really get to see how strong Mother Nature is and how powerful and how insignificant you are in that.

As we got about half way out in the sound, it was time for us to moor up in the middle of the sound and participate in water activities. This is where Milford suddenly became Unsound. We had choices of two activities, either go aboard a tender boat and cruise around the inlet with a guide telling you about all the flora and fauna, or jump in a kayak and do the same. While it was still quite grey and a bit wet, it did seem calm and settled. Both Simon and I were set to go out in one of the kayaks. The tender boats went out first and then eventually they started putting the 17 of us doing kayaking into the water. Simon and I were paddling about a bit, getting ready for our trip when the wind started to pick up a bit. Suddenly, nearby, one the 17 ended up tipped over in the water. We had been told what to do, though this lady forgot for a moment, which was hold onto your kayak and not panic. She was panicking and not holding onto her kayak. I shook my head and thought, man, how silly do you have to be to end up in the water like that. One of the tender boats started heading for her to fish her out. Less than a minute later, there are shouts that someone else has gone in nearby the first lady. The wind started to pick up a bit more and there were now swells in our little calm inlet. I look in front of me and I see another guy who has gone in the water and then all of a sudden a swell rocked me to my left and a just of wind pushed me a bit further and I couldn’t lean enough to the right and water rushed into my kayak and I knew I was going under. I popped up, grabbed onto my kayak and saw the guy I had seen moments before and shouted at him “are you ok?” We both were clinging on for dear life. I got enough wits about me at that point to realise the vast majority of us were now in the water, and I was being swept by the backend of the ship. Realising that waiting for a tender would be a bit silly, with so many people to rescue now, I should try to make it to the back of the boat. I was able to start kicking and making movement towards the boat, which was moving too. While moored on a buoy, it still could pivot around this anchor and was in the now pretty heavy wind and rain. I had to hold onto a rope while the grew were fishing another gal out with a life ring, but I finally got aboard.

I had no idea where Simon was, there were a small group of folks still in kayaks, but they looked like they were going to go ashore, which we were told under no circumstances should we do. Clearly though this was not normal circumstances. Finally I saw Simon, bobbing up and down near a kayak and being helped by another guy in kayak who was a passenger but clearly knew what he was doing. Simon was the last to be fished out of the water though by the tender boat. Simon must have been in the freezing water though for a good 10-15 minutes while I was standing at the back of the boat, starting to dry myself off.

We found out a few things later, Of the 17 of us, 10 ended up in the water, two were able to return to the boat and the 5 made it ashore to be rescued by tender. Also our guide ended up capsized in the water and had to be rescued. It was the worst experience that the crew had ever seen with the kayaks. The skipper had come off the bridge and jumped onto one of the tenders to go out and rescue people, he was so worried. There is also another boat that overnights on the Sound and they also had many people go in via the kayaks. Many of the kayaks and paddles were simply abandoned and slowly washed ashore, but the weather was simply too rough to risk going to get them. The crew said they would be retrieved in the morning.

All said and done, there was only one lady on the other ship who was really in a state of shock after ending up in the water and everyone on our ship who went in were in good spirit and having a lively conversations in the mess that evening. The crew seemed far more worried and concerned and stressed than any of us guests were.

Simon said he wanted memorable experiences on this trip, well we certainly got them on Milford Sound.

Overnight the wind and the rain buffeted the ship. It was some of the worst weather they have had on the Sound in the summer. But at some point in the evening, the rain stopped, the wind stopped and the skies started to break up. So when we got up in the morning we saw…

Along the way back, we stopped off to pick up the kayaks we lost… I don’t think Kayak Rescue will be a big hit on Netflix though.

As we got into the harbour of Milford Sound, we packed up our clothes (the crew washed and dried our critical clothes for us, though we still had some non-critical clothes and shoes that were soaking wet) and said goodbye to the Milford Mariner.

We boarded our coach (with the same driver who had stayed overnight on shore) and started heading back. About 45 minutes outside of Te Anau we crossed 11 coach loads of tourists headed into Milford Sound for a 1:45 minute cruise, only to hop back on and head back the other direction. I certainly say we got the far better experience!