adventurethroughtravel: April 20th, 2008, Milford Sound to Invercargill

We were up for breakfast before sunrise, and then went for a tour of the Sound and a sail to the open ocean. Captain Cook sailed by the opening without notice, since the narrowness of the opening and the vertical height of Dale Point makes the opening almost impossible to see from more than two miles away. The reason it was called a Sound was when it was named the word fjord had not been introduced to the English language. A Fjord is a glacier formed valley with steep sides that is filled with salt water after the glacier retreats.

There were dolphins and tuna spotted on the cruise. We stopped at Bowen Falls and Stirling Falls. The Milford Sound receives between 6 and 8 meters of rainfall per year! At times there can be 12 feet of fresh water floating on top of the salt water and logs float at the salt fresh water boundary and are a hazard to propellers. We are quite lucky that it is a day with clear blue skies. At 9:30 we are retracing the road to Te Anau, arguably one of the finest motorcycle rides in the world. We stopped at the Homer Tunnel and Mirror Lakes. The road winds between the Livingston and Earl mountain ranges and the view of the snow topped peaks was spectacular. The only problem was it was cold, just above zero.

After lunch at Te Anau, we followed the Southern Scenic Route which combines fast straight sections, with sweeping corners and incredible scenery. Fiorland National Park has snow covered peaks to the right while Tamitumu Mountains are on the left with shee0p grazing in green fields on each side of the road. The temperature has warmed so we don’t have cold hands anymore.

Past Tuatapere we reach the south coast where the wind is blowing a gale from the south. We stopped at Riverton for a coffee and idiot me left the bike lights on and we had to have AA come to the rescue (they are in New Zealand!) We stopped at Invercargill for the night