Day 40 – Feb 14 – Cruising through the Fiordland National Park

Sunrise as we enter Dusky Sound.  It is the largest fjords on this coast, 28.5 miles in length and 5 miles wide at it’s widest point.  It is believed that the Maori camped by the sound’s waters while hunting the now extinct bird – the moa.  The opening to this sound was first sighted by Captain Cook on his first voyage to New Zealand on Feb 13, 1770.  And here I am 241 years and 1 day later.

 

Once again I am searching for words to describe what I am seeing and feeling as I continue this journey around the world.  So maybe I’ll just give you, my faithful blog readers, the facts about this amazing NZ National Park and share some pictures:

1.  Fiordland has achieved World Heritage Status and is renowned as the home of Mitre Peak and the Fiods of Milford and Doubtful Sound.  Extraordinary scenic beauty combine with soulful feelings of Awe and Wonderment is the best I can come up with.

2.  (Quote from “Mountains of Water”)

3.  A NZ bill was passed in the 1970’s to protect one of it’s lakes from a Hydro-electric plant.

Seals basking in the sun but no sightings of bottlenose dolphins who also make their home here.

  Kayakers by Stirling Falls

“Jagged razor backed mountains rear their heads into the sky.  More than 200 days of rain a year ensure not a tree branch is left bare and brown, moss and epiphytes drape every nook.  The forest is intensely green.  This is big country…one day peaceful, a study in green and blue, the next melancholy and misty, with low cloud veiling the tops..an awesome place, with its granite precipices, its hanging valleys, its earthquake faults and thundering cascades.”  Charles Lyttelton, Governor-General of NZ (1957-1962)

Milford Sound has been called the eighth Wonder of the World by Rudyand Kipling.  It’s also the wettest place in NZ and one of the wettest in the world which accounts for all the waterfalls and mists.  The pointed peak is Mitre Peak.

   Snow on those peaks, the first time that I’ve seen snow this year.

Leaving Milford Sound & Environs.

This whole day had a dream-like quality to it.  I hope to never forget it.