Return to New Zealand

I arrived back in NZ at Christchurch airport to be greeted with the news that a freak storm had ripped through the area and that there was widespread major disruption. As if the poor people of Christchurch had not had enough to contend with in recent times, the area where I was due to stay the night, had thousands of trees down and no electricity, but they counted themselves lucky - they had no significant structural damage. Fortunately my hosts owned a small generator and that kept the fridges going, and the beers cold, which we drank by candlelight.

The next morning it was off to the bus, for the 5 ½ hour bus ride down to Dunedin where I was met by my hosts and good friends Claudie and Benoit. It was really good to be back, even though the contrast between the warm, sunny, vibrant Sydney and the rather dour and considerably cooler Dunedin could not have been greater.

As well as getting back together with a few great mates, I had come back to New Zealand for a number of other reasons. Firstly, as my visa had expired, I had to leave Australia. Secondly I could continue my recovery/recuperation, which was progressing well, but was ongoing, and, as this was the closest place, if I had needed further contact with the medical guys in Oz, I could easily fly back, and, thirdly, I had failed to get to see the fjords last time I was here, due to poor weather and I really needed to try and correct this.

Fjordland, is regarded by some, as the scenic highlight of the whole country, so after a week in Dunedin I set off to see if it was worthy of the hype.

There are two principle destinations, Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound, located in the remote south western corner of the country and I decided that I would try and get to both.  I managed to do a great deal with a leading tour company for a day tour to Milford and, the next day, an overnight cruise in Doubtful but this meant that I had to first get up to Queeenstown where the tours start from, so it was back on the bus for 4 hours to one of the most popular and vibrant centres of the country.

Queenstown is a very pretty place, set on the shore of the picturesque, z shaped, glacial Lake Wakatipu, with spectacular mountain views all around. It was established in the late 19^th century as a camp town on the back of gold having been discovered in the nearby Arrow river and is now a resort for summer tourists and winter sports enthusiasts alike, and has many restaurants, bars, clubs and a busy shopping mall.

In the South Island that there are actually not that many roads, so there is usually no choice of how you get to places. What appears to be a relatively short distance between destinations on a map, can take an age as there are mountain ranges that need to be circumnavigated. There are no motorways in the south west and landslides and bad weather can prevent access to, or from, a whole area, at any time of the year, often without warning. The majority of the estimated ¾ million tourists a year that make the 6 hour round trip from Queenstown, travel by coach in the company of informative and helpful drivers, but it is what is outside that is the attraction and some of the scenery is breathtaking especially on a picture perfect, sunny day that I was lucky enough to get, it was amazing.

The incredible effects of glacial erosion are laid out in front of you like a huge 3D textbook. U shaped valleys, hanging valleys, moraine fields, drumlins  and countless other features that made me wish I had either paid a bit more attention to physical geography, or at least had better recall of what I used to know. We also stopped at the photogenic  ‘mirror lakes’ where the world appears upside down as the mountains are reflected in the surface of the perfectly calm, clear water.

 

 

From an engineering perspective, shortly before arriving in Milford, you pass through the impressive Homer Tunnel, which runs ¾ mile through a mountain of solid granite and was an incredible achievement for its day. It was started in 1935 by men using picks and wheelbarrows and took nearly 20 years to complete, although this was interrupted by World War 2, and is notable as it has to contend with the combination of massive extremes of weather and, at certain times of the year, up to 40,000 litres of melt water an hour percolating through it.

Milford itself is tiny, home to only about 100+ people who are all employed in the tourist or conservation industries, but the harbour was busy with tour boats, whilst overhead, planes and helicopters buzzed around with their high paying clients. The Sound was discovered in 1812 by a Welshman, John Grono. The entrance is not visible from the sea and James Cook had previously mapped the coastline as just a shallow cove as he sailed past. Grono sought shelter in this’ cove’ from a fierce storm, but noticed that it opened up into a fjord and named it after his home town, Milford Haven, it was later renamed Milford Sound, actually incorrectly, as a sound, technically, is a drowned river valley rather than a glacial valley.

It stretches inland approximately 15 kilometres and its sheer walls, waterfalls, lush, dense vegetation and tranquillity led Rudyard Kipling to describe it as, ’the eighth natural wonder of the world’. As always there are upsides and downsides of weather. The beautiful day made it perfect to take the slow cruise out as far as The Tasman Sea, but the fact that it had not rained, meant that the waterfalls were relatively quiet.

This area of New Zealand is one of the wettest parts of the world, annually receiving up to 7 metres of rain and when the high ground has been soaked there are literally hundreds of waterfalls that pour down the sheer valley walls, however there are still several lake fed falls that are permanently flowing and against the blue sky and bright sunshine they were sensational.

The 2 hour cruise starts and ends in front of Mitre Peak,

probably the most famous view of Fjordland and the half way point is turning at the fjord end in the Tasman Sea.

 It is amazing to think that the mountains either side are only (roughly) half as high as the fjord is deep as this has been recorded as more than 400m in places.

The dense beech forest carpets the slopes giving way to vast scars in places, evidence of tree avalanches and rockfalls, some of which are earthquake related.

 

It was over all too soon but well worth the hype!

As I was going to visit Doubtful the next day, I stayed the night in Te Anau, a small town approximately half way back to Queenstown, again set on the side of a beautiful lake with a backdrop of snow capped mountains. This is a staging point for both of the destinations and I could therefore pick up the coach from Queenstown here, the following morning, for the totally different journey to this fjord.

Unlike Milford there is no road access to Doubtful, rather you need to cross, by high speed hydrofoil, the extremely deep, Lake Manapouri - which is reputedly the largest accumulation of non frozen, fresh water in the southern hemisphere - and then proceed through the Wilmot Pass -a steep narrow road constructed using the spoil from excavations - from the lake to the fjord.

A colossal underground hydro electric power station was constructed at the end of the lake and the pass was built so that all of the machinery could be shipped in by sea, docked at the end of the fjord and transported to site for its installation. Again this was an immense feat of engineering, and, was it not for the fact that nearly of all of the electricity produced here is sent to an enormous aluminium smelting plant in Invercargill, the energy produced would be sufficient to satisfy all of the needs of the entire South Island.

This fjord was explored by Cook, but as he ventured into it, he worried that he may be becalmed and  was doubtful  of his ability to get out again, hence the name. It is much bigger than Milford and comprises three distinct arms.

It is not as immediately picturesque but its raw, natural beauty makes it every bit as engaging and although the weather was overcast, the clouds added to the atmosphere of this majestic location.

 The waters here have an unusual characteristic. The heavier salt water sits underneath the ‘run off’ fresh water, which is itself stained, by tannins picked up by its course through the surrounding soil producing an almost ’tea stained’ upper layer. This upper layer limits light penetration of the water, resulting in a unique marine ecosystem, normally associated with far deeper water,  to exist in the fjord.

The cruise itself was aboard a replica ‘scow’, a flat bottomed sailing barge very popular with immigrant sailors in the late 1800’s.

The sails are now for show but pretty impressive when unfurled and very fitting for the location. There are cabins and small shared dormitory’s, but as the boat was not full, I had the four berth accommodation to myself. The crew included a naturalist who advised of all of the points of interest as well as describing the flora and fauna which included a small pod of bottle nosed dolphins, basking fur seals and we even caught sight of a pair of extremely rare Fjordland Crested penguins.

The moody skies and changing light,

whilst a contrast to the previous day, really played its part in adding to the experience and again we were lucky that the weather and sea were calm and this allowed us to get out into the open sea, affording a look back into the fjord, which the captain explained would only be possible maybe a dozen times a year.

This is truly an unpredictable and wild part of the world. The latitude of this area is what is known as the Roaring 40’s. Forty degrees south of the equator the winds whip around the planet and, as this is below South Africa and Australia, the south west of New Zealand and the tip of South America get battered by the full forces of nature.

 Note :- If you want to see some great aerial and scenic shots have a look at the tour operators web page at    

https://www.realjourneys.co.nz/en/experiences/cruises/doubtful-sound-overnight-cruises/

We moored for a while and a couple of people went out on kayaks, I chose the more sedate trip out with the naturalist on a small tender and, yes there is always one, Mr Bonkers from Sweden went swimming – he got cramp and then shivered for three hours!!

The food was good, the bar was late, the beverages were very reasonably priced and I met a young German couple who taught me a card game called Ruf 66, which was so complicated that it made sub atomic particle physics look about as daunting as a Burger King menu.

The next morning we sailed into another arm of the fjord and were all invited up on deck. The engines were cut and we were asked to observe 5 minutes silence

..... the only sounds were the occasional bird call and the distant noise of a waterfall. In such a beautiful location you tend to forget about listening and it was a great idea.

However the experience is in stark contrast to what is recorded by the first sailors to explore this area. When I was doing some research before the trip I had read that the early visitors were staggered by the noise the birds made, it was necessary to put your hands over your ears, it was so loud.

Perhaps the bird population has decreased, or possibly it was the fact, that 150 years ago, birds had never seen anything like it, as it has to be remembered that, until man arrived, the only mammal to have ever existed on the whole of New Zealand had been a very small bat!!  

The impact of the Maori had been pretty low key. Blokes in boats would certainly have been something to squawk about but they had no idea of the carnage that was to come as the whalers and seal hunters moved in.

Within an hour it was back to the dock and time to retrace the journey back to Dunedin. Fortunately Claudie, who had been on business near by, picked me up in Queenstown and we returned to Dunedin via Arrowtown and a couple of smaller towns but all I could think of was the fjords!

The whole adventure had been fabulous, it was worth the wait and I would have been so disappointed not to have seen it. Whether i would go as far as Kipling......hmm, I am not too sure, but just these 2 days had been enough to warrant my return to this stunning country.