The Fiordland

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

The Fiordland

We headed to the Wanaka Airport to fly with Southern Alps Air to the Fiordaland, Milford. The Southwest New Zealand World Heritage Area is one of the most significant wilderness areas of the Southern Hemisphere and is known to the Maori as Te Wahipounamu (the place of greenstone). This area includes Araki/Mt. Cook, Westalnd/Tai Poutini, Fiordland, and Mount Aspiring National Parks, covering 2.6 million hectares.

Our pilots name was Dean and we were very fortunate that no one had signed on to this particular flight. We took off at 10 am and headed over Mount Aspiring National Park. Mt. Aspiring itself is 3027 m and is flanked by glaciers. We could also see Mt. Cook in the distance. The scenery was breathtaking! Dean was an excellent pilot as well as our tour guide.

We headed into the Fiordland World heritage National Park area. Again breathtaking with glaciers all around. We landed and headed towards the docks to catch our ride onto Milford Sound. Milford runs 15 km inland from the Tasman Seas and is surround by sheer rock faces that rise 1200 m or more on either side. Lush rain forests cling to the cliffs and many waterfalls can be seen. Only two are permanent while others form during rainfall. The mean annual rainfall here is 6813 mm on 182 days a year which places it as one of the wettest in the world. Rainfall can reach 350mm during a span of 24 hours.

As we pulled out we saw our first falls, Bowen Falls (Lady Bowen Fall) named after the wife of Sir George Bowen, one of NZ’s early governor’s in the 1870‘s. This is one of the two permanent falls and drops 160 m.

Sinbad Gully was next and is a u-shaped. Next to it is Mitre peak 1, 692 m (5,560 ft) and is one of the highest mountain in the world that rise directly from the ocean floor. So named because its shape resembles that of a Bishop’s mitre, or hat.

We then passed Copper point so named because of the presence of coper in the rock and is the narrowest point. We saw seals here!!! And a new pup as well. Bridal Veil Falls came in to view and is a semi-permanent fall.

The boat made it to the out to the Tasman and then turned back. The trip back was as beautiful. We pushed into the Stirling Falls so got a bit wet but was beautiful This is the other permanent fall dropping 146 m from a beautiful u-shaped hanging valley. Mt. Kimberly also known as Lion Mountain, rises to a height of 1302 m and resembles a crouching lion.

We passed Harrison’s Cove which is home to the Milford Underwater Observatory. We passed Mt. Pembroke which has a glacier that helped carve out Milford Sound. Then it was back to the dock and back in the air. Steve sat in the co-pilot seat on the return to Wanaka. More glaciers, rivers, lakes, and stunning views of the mountains.

We went to a craftsman market across from the lake and then grabbed some take away fish and ate along the lake, We headed back to our room and had a swim then grilled some chicken and relaxed for the evening.