Day 4: To Milford Sound and back

Today we drove up to Milford Sound, which is in Fiordland National Park. The sound is a Fiord. We headed out at 8am to get there in time for our two hour cruise of the sound. It was overcast with low clouds and sometimes fog. Here is an early morning picture as we began to climb and approach the mountains.

Here is a closeup map showing the sound, and the highway through the mountains to get to it. In the middle of the map is the label "Gertrude Saddle" which is a solid piece of rock with tunnel through its. Construction on the tunnel began in the 1930's and it opened in the mid 1950's, originally gravel roadbed, but now paved. The tunnel is 3/4 of a mile long.

Here is a closeup map. Notice the twisties and curves in the road , which are after coming out of the tunnel on the far side. There are actually more curves than shown. The curves are very tight and the road descends quite steeply. We smelled overheating brakes from vans and campers ahead of us.

Here we are waiting to enter the tunnel. It is one lane. A batch of cars goes through one direction, then a batch the other direction. Here is the entrance to the tunnel and inside,

Here we are at the sound waiting for our boat tour.

Here are some pics from the cruise in the sound.

We also saw a couple of seals and dolfins.

After our sound cruise we drove back the same way to Te Anau.