During our visit to Queenstown, New Zealand, we took a bus tour to Milford Sound. The ride to and from Milford Sound was nearly as spectacular as the sound itself.
Technically, it’s not a sound, it’s a fiord. (Fiord is the New Zealand spelling, as opposed to the Norwegian spelling, fjord.) But the name Milford Sound has stuck.
In this post, we’ll share a few of the dozens of photos and videos we took on this unforgettable day.
It was a long day – about twelve hours. Most of it was spent on a bus. Milford Sound is only about 100 km from Queenstown as the crow flies, but the winding road to get there is almost 300 km.
We drove past countless pastures filled with sheep and, to a lesser extent, cattle.
There are approximately 23 million sheep in New Zealand. (There are about 5.34 million humans.) We felt like we saw at least half of them! Some pastures contained hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of sheep. This was the best photo we could get from a moving bus.
We drove past beautiful lakes and majestic, towering mountains. Here are a few pictures from photo stops along the way.
Our tour bus had a glass roof, which we had never seen before. It enabled us to admire the mountain peaks high above us from inside the bus.
While it was sunny and partly cloudy for most of the drive, as we approached the coast, the weather became cloudy and overcast. The forecast called for a 50% chance of rain, but fortunately, we got very little. We spent most of the 2-hour cruise on the top deck. Viewing the sound from inside the boat would have been much less satisfying.
We spotted a seal sunning itself on a rock.
Here’s a 360-degree view:
We passed several waterfalls. This one, Stirling Falls, was the largest. We got close enough to the falls to feel the mist on our faces.
As we approached the end of the cruise, several birds flew overhead.
After the birds swooped and soared in the sky above us, a couple of them alighted on the boat a few feet from where we were standing.
As usual, photos can only partially convey the grandeur and the awe-inspiring natural beauty. This experience was one we’ll never forget. If you ever have the opportunity to visit New Zealand, we highly recommend including a cruise on Milford Sound in your plans.
