It was a rainy day on Milford Sound, and therefore 1000s of waterfalls off the cliffs. We had visited the sound a few weeks earlier on our cruise, but this was from a different view down close to the water, and on a different kind of day. The drive to Milford Sound was hours. The sound is mostly straight west from Queenstown as the bird flies, but to get there, we had to drive far to the south, a bit west, and then far to the northwest.
It rained all day, so we got to see numerous waterfalls from the cliffs just driving to the sound. Just a few miles before reaching the sound, far north from Te Anau (where the Fiordland National Park Visitor Center is located), we stopped by the side of the road to hike to The Chasm. It's a spot along the Cleddau River, where the watercourse carves its way through narrow rock formations, making interesting sculptures.
The force of the river as it approached the Chasm, and dropped right under our bridge.
Photos can not really capture the brilliance of the river "artwork".
Once we arrived in Milford Sound, we had to wait a bit to get onto our boat. It was this cool blue sailing vessel, as opposed to a ferry boat. (Photo: Keith)
There's the narrator, telling us stuff we mostly knew from our previous visit there, when the cruise-ship narrator was a retired Fiordland National Park Ranger, whose home was Te Anau.
Due to the rain, there were impressive waterfalls everywhere.
We are about to put the bow of our boat right into that waterfall!
Many adventurous souls went out to get drenched in that waterfall. Not Janet nor I. I stole this photo from Keith!
We sailed clear out to the Tasman Sea and turned around, and we got to see some sea lions out there on the rocks. (Thank you, Keith.)
A view of the long sound, on our way back into it from the Tasman Sea.
Almost back to the Milford Sound port, we passed Bowman Falls, a large permanent waterfall on the north side of the sound.
I had no more photos from this rainy day. We had a long drive back to Queenstown. We stopped at the National Park Visitor Center in Te Anau. Back in Queenstown, we had dinner at Speight's Ale House, but despite the attraction of its name, it was not too great. Too many of us for too few wait staff, and all of us crowded into two booths.
As Greg said early on, if we were going to have a rainy day, this was the day to have it since it meant all the great waterfalls in Milford Sound, as well as on the drive there.
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