10/4: Milford Sound

Today was one of the most incredible experiences I've ever had.

We got up and it was raining, which ended up being a good thing- I'll explain that in a minute. We got some breakfast and headed out towards Te Anau. Between Queenstown and Te Anau was (relatively) unexciting. But between Te Anau and Milford Sound was a very incredible drive.

Within a span of under 2 hours, we saw pretty much every kind of terrain you could ever encounter. Driving up into the Fiordland, there were beatiful lakes, valleys, rivers, and cliffs, but it got even better. The closer we got, the more incredible the scenery became. Pictures and words can do nothing to describe what we saw- remember earlier how I was talking about how cool the glaciers were, and mentioned Canada and the Rockies, etc.? Forget all of that, Norway, the Alps, the Rockies, the Tatras, they all pale in comparison to the Cleddau Valley and Milford Sound. We saw thousands, literally thousands of waterfalls. And mountains that were some of the highest in the world in terms of prominence, cliffs tens of thousands of feet tall, and glaciers, and I'm at a complete loss for words. The prettiest place I've been lucky to see, hands down. It was totally overwhelming.

It was sort of emotional, it almost moved me to tears, and that was before we took the 2 hour cruise around Milford Sound (actually a fjord). We went all the way to to the Tasman Sea along the length of the fiord, and since it had rained in the morning, it actually made the experience better because there were hundreds of temporary waterfalls coming right down the mountainsides. The difference of about 100 yards from inside and outside the main channel meant 4 foot waves on the Tasman- biggest waves I've ever been on. We even saw some NZ Fur Seals along the rocky edges.

In the afternoon it cleared for our drive back, and we stopped to see the Chasm, which again I can't even begin to describe- its sort of like a waterfall, sort of like a bunch of miniature caves. We also saw the Mirror Lakes- so smooth they reflect nearly perfectly the mountain range and valley behind them.

All in all this was the most awesome scenery I've ever seen, I'm very drained from the whole day.

Be sure to check the blog and read through all the posts on Tuesday- I'm going to flush them all out a bit. Pictures and videos will also come when we're back in Australia, we only have brief access periods while we're travelling. Check on Tuesday, they'll be up.