We left Queenstown at 7 am on a cold and drizzly morning. The edges of the mountain ranges melted away into the mists as we drove along the shore of Lake Wakatipu.
We started to climb and the bus swung from side to side high above the lake, and I began to wish I wasn't sitting in the front. We passed the town of Kingston, at one end of the lake.
After some time, we stopped going south from Queenstown, and turned west. The rain came on harder. We passed through Te Anu and started travelling north, heading into Fiordland National Park and following the course of the Eglinton River through beech forests. We made a stop at Mirror Lakes, but sadly the rain prevented much of the mirror effect. Usually, the surrounding mountains are mirrored in the lakes, but it wasn't very clear today.
We pressed on through now driving rain, and crossed The Divide, the watershed that marks the boundary between the east and west of Fiordland National Park. The rain began hammering on the bus roof and bouncing off the road.
On either side of the road, the landscape is covered with cool temperate rainforest, jungle-dense and dripping wet. High above, the bare high stony peaks now streamed with waterfalls. Photographs were difficult, what with driving rain, swirling mists and fat drops on the bus windows.
What were apparently usually small rivers had become raging torrents.
We made a stop at Monkey Creek and I filled my water bottle, as instructed, with cold pure mountain water. Then we pressed on, driving without stopping along avalanche alley to the Homer Tunnel; the ice had descended right to the tunnel entrance.
The tunnel is 1.2 km long and is one way, so you may have to wait 15 minutes until it is your turn.
We made a stop at the Chasm, but the rain was falling in sheets and I have no waterproof trousers, so I was reluctant to take the 15 minute walk. Those with waterproof trousers walked, those who walked without them got very wet legs and feet. I supposed that I would have more than enough waterfall photographs by the end of the day, and stayed dry in the bus. I am a fair weather walker!
We arrived in Milford Sound at the boat about 12.10, in good time for the 12.30 sailing. It was a nice big boat, fortunately. I took this photo when we got back - it was too wet to take photos when we arrived, the rain was continuing to descend by the bucketful.
Actually, some of the waterfalls were actually ON the boat. So much rain was falling on the upper (open) deck that there was a permanent cascade onto the lower deck, particularly at the back of the boat.
The more famous landmarks were hard to recognise through the mists
Everywhere you looked, water streamed down. There is no soil on the rock walls above this picture, and very little on these lower slopes that are actually in the picture, so the water just cascaded down.
There are only 5 permanent waterfalls in Milford Sound, but today there must have been thousands.
The permanent waterfalls, like this one below, the Stirling Falls, had far more water than usual. The ship's captain took us very close in for this shot. I jumped back inside, because I could see what was coming, but a few people got absolutely soaked to the skin.
Because the fiord has such steep sides, the boat can come within a few feet of the rock face.
The ship was able to go right out of the fiord into the sea. Even through the driving rain, you can see the entrance is narrow.
On the way back up the fiord, the weather began to improve very slightly, and we were able to see the fur seals lying on some flat rocks. It was too wet for the penguins though, the captain told us they could usually be seen, but if it was too wet, they sheltered in their rock burrows.
On the way back he took us fairly close to another permanent waterfall, the Bowen Falls, which are 160 metres high. These are usually pretty spectacular, but today there was an unprecedented weight of water going over them, it having been raining hard all night. The force of the water is so great, you can see just how much water is being turned into vapour.
As we returned to land, the rain eased off somewhat, and although it was still raining quite heavily, it was nothing like as heavy as it had been. We got back on the bus and made our way on the long drive back to Te Anu and our hotel, noticing even more of the raging torrents. This one is normally a culvert beside the road!
Back at the hotel, Paul decided that his day had not been sufficiently watery and took a trip underground on a small boat to see glow worms in some cave or other.
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