Sleeping bags a HUMUNGOUS success and a good night sleep had by us both. Back on the road and Milford Sound country in sight.
On arrival we head for the Milford Sound terminal, on paper this sounds like you're arriving at some industrial boat yard but reality is so very different.
We're very pleased we held off pre-booking, for $99 each we managed to get a 3 hour cruise, including the Discovery and Underwater Observatory and gourmet lunch, as oppose to the meager offering previously of $78 for just a 1.5 hour cruise. Bearing in mind the observatory is $36 pp we are chuffed...Matt was very excited about the lunch ;). All aboard we sailed out into Milford Sound, or should I say Fjord (created by glacier and u-shaped) as it is technically not a Sound (created by river and v-shaped).
We have an absolutely stonking day, deep blue sky, sun and minimal wind something our guide keeps saying is extremely rare. The Sounds usually receive around 200 days of heavy rainfall a year and the water is brown due to the tannins seeping theough the rocks.
We have a Canadian guide who continually points out areas of interest and explains in a fair amount of detail how or why rock sides look the way they do or are formed in particular shapes. His microphone was powerful and boomed around the vessel but unfortunately was also in competition with the odd group so we missed some interesting information.
We stopped and watched fat male Fur Seal sun bathing and rucking over pole rock position.
One of the two resident waterfalls, Stirling Falls, doing its thing. The only draw back of no rain was that we didn't get to witness the hundreds/thousands of waterfalls which appear throughout the sound during rainfall which must be a spectacular sight.
On the return voyage we stopped at the Discovery (surface/floating) and Obervatory (10.4m below and suspended) centre and listened to an extremely knowledgeable Canadian lady talking about the sound and its underwater inhabitants...
in particular the black coral (which is white)! Due to the unique darkness of the water, due to the tannins, inhabitants usually only seen at depths of 50m+ are seen at the Obervatory level. I could have stayed watching the undersea world go by for hours...
Bowen falls, another resident and skinnier version than during rainfall, showing us its stuff. Talking about skinnier versions, Matt immensely enjoyed the lunch except the potato salad which he ditched! Ditched, good grief does he not know me at all, I would have happily traded my chicken drumstick or exotic fruit salad.
This was an awesome experience and moment in our life, if I had more money I would pay to see Doubtfull and all the sounds but alas we don't so we drive off jabbering about our experience and how unbelievably fortunate we are. Stopping at various sights along the Milford Sound road we just couldn't believe the astounding weather and day we've had.
Mirror lakes was our last stop before camp and even though the water wasn't still enough to reflect the mountain range (as the name suggests) it was still a beautiful sight.
We chose the same campsite as the previous night, shovelled down some baked beans and snuggled up in our now co-joined sleeping bags.
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