Up early in the morning (around 8!) and after a quick stop to get a Latte, on the road to drive the 120 kilometers to Milford Sound, or Piopiotahi in Māori, after the piopio bird, which is now extinct.

It really is at the end of it all. Funnily, two days ago I was just about 25 kilometers from the Sound, in Glenorchy, just on the other side of the mountain range. But as there’s no way through, I had to make a 400 km near-complete circle to get there.

The landscape becomes more and more impressive, and I threw in more and more stops for a photo or a quick look around the corner.

The drive leads you up slowly, first along Lake Ta Anau, then into the hills full with sheep, then into large valleys full with yellow grass… But the valley of the Eglinton River narrows down and soon you find yourself surrounded by high rocky walls towering over you, and a little creek below you.

The clouds hang low in between the peaks and your cell phone reception is long gone. As is FM radio for that matter, there simply is no reception at all. Halfway, the navi also threw in the towel and asks me to return to the road, thinking I am driving through fields or mountains…

There’s a couple of really narrow parts of the road where it basically gets reduced to one and a half lane, demanding extra care from the drivers. NZ police complains about the large number of car crashes and fatalities, mostly caused by European tourists that drive too fast, and not necessarily on the left.

Finally, you’re at the end of the long valley, the mountain over you, with the remains of the last glacier, the one that carved out that valley millennia ago, through one of the hardest rocks on earth they claim.

You have to stop at the Homer tunnel and wait. It’s one-way, without lighting inside. It took 20 years to dig it out, at the loss of several lives, but it’s the only way into Milford Sound.

While waiting, I was attacked by cheeky Keas, the local, alpine parrots. The literally fly on top of your car and knock… I have to check the car roof for damage, actually. I don’t want to get into a fight with their beaks.

After the tunnel, the road gets hazardous. A steep decline with many slow turns. Again there are lots of potential stops for photos and hikes.

As I had a booking for my boat though, I only made one relatively short walk to The Chasm, a waterfall carved into the bedrock by the water and the stones that the river carries. It’s a short walk from the road in what must be the mossiest, wettest place on Earth, a paradise for ferns and any plant that likes it wet.

Indeed, Milford Sound is one of the wettest places on the planet. While Te Anau ‘only gets about 2 meters of rain a year (reminder: Central Europe measures rainfall in millimeters), Milford gets an average of seven meters year. The record was 14 meters, though.

It is so much water that it creates layers of freshwater above the saltwater of the ocean in the Sound.

So I’m finally there, and have a little time to kill before we get on the boat – along with the usual horde of Tourists. Though, from the size of the station, I suspect we are indeed low season already. This place can hold many more busses than I’ve seen there today.

Finally, on the boat. A big sailing ship, much bigger than I expected, for a Fjord. We’re not too many after all, so everyone gets a good spot for the Gigabytes of photos that will be shot during the two-and-a-half hour turn.

The Sound is simply breathtaking. Mountains rise up on both sides, taller than and manmade high riser, with waterfalls and overhangs, mosses and trees…

The ship gets really close to the rocky walls, and even partially under one of the waterfalls. The water below us, as the skipper informs us, is still deep, up to three hundred meters of water, and the rock goes down vertically into the deep.

The water is dark. Apparently, its so dark that some deep ocean species actually live in that darkness, and are studied by researchers that have established a station and information museum at the Sounds.

I was really lucky with the weather. It did not rain as I feared, which would have been the normal thing, with over 200 days a year. But the clouds were actually quite high, covering only some peaks, and from time to time the sun even came out. Probably, in the locals perspective, this was very good weather.

We sailed past the alpine fault line, clearly visible in the rock, a huge fissure along the side of the mountain, with water flowing down and plants growing inside. This fault runs all along New Zealand’s South Island, and separates the Pacific plate from the Australian.

It was also pretty calm, so wen we reached the end of the sound, they took us for a little circle out into the Tasman Sea, which normally can’t be done when the waves get too high.

We sailed along little colonies of fur seals, and we even got to see a young humpback whale swimming close to us. This seems to be really rare at this time of year, and they only get to see maybe ten whales throughout a year.

Finally at one of the rare beaches, already out of the Sound along the Tasman Sea, they pointed out a beach that is very important in Māori history, as it is one of the main spots to find New Zealand jade, or Pounamu as they call it.

They travelled from far into the Sound to get Pounamu, and trade it for anything. It was pretty much as important as gold for Europeans. The beach is protected now, as to preserve the remaining stones for future generations.

After two and a half hours, and surprisingly pretty ignored by the sand flies that everybody complained about, I was back ashore. I drove the 120 kilometers back pretty much in one go, only stopping once for a little stretch… After such a day with so many impressions, all I can do is get a dinner and fall into bed.

I took 510 pictures (and a couple of movies) with 5.97 GB. And this probably became the longest post on this blog. But hey, I want to remember all this when I’m old.