Milford Sound

As we continued north, our next stop was the famous Milford Sound, which is actually not a sound at all, we learned, but a fiord.  A sound is made by a river, and a fiord by a glacier.  Therefore, the Milford Sound, located in Fiordland, should be the Milford Fiord.  But anyway, it is a spectacular bay-like area.  There are many fiords in Fiordland, but this one is the most popular.  Not sure exactly why - but there are many boat companies that do cruises, helicopter and seaplane flights, and kayak rentals are available.  And more, I'm sure.  Anyway, I really wanted to take a boat ride on the sacraficial fiord, as my dad had highly recommended it from his previous trip to NZ.  It was well worth the cash!  We arrived to the area late in the day, but decided to catch the last cruise of the day, as the weather was spectacular, and this part of the country is known for rain, rain, rain.  It rains about 200 days out of the year here.

On the way up we had picked up another hitchhiker - this time a Belgian (from the French side) named Fela.  He was also around 18 or so.  Nice kid, we dropped him off a little while later at a campground.  He planned to do the cruise early the next day.

This was our vessel, the Lady Bowen.

Here are the Lady Bowen Falls, named by Mr. Bowen, who named them after his wife because he said they are as beautiful as she was.  I told Caryl if he ever names a natural feature after me, it better be cooler than this - at least an island or river or something.

Super high cliff.

More waterfalls!

They promised us seals and dolphins and penguins.  We saw one rock with seals.

Rainbow!

Helicopter filming the boat in the rainbow - best to make promotional materials while the weather holds up!

Stunning!

Lovely!

Lady Bowen Falls on the way back.

Wekas enjoying the tourist-frequented picnic area.

Baby weka.  We've seen these around and didn't know what they were.  Apparently they are wekas, a native bird species.  We'd been calling them forest chickens - apparently their colloquial name is a wood hen.  We were close...

On the way back, we picked up another hitchhiker!  This one was a 24 year old Japanese guy named Taku.  He was great!  It was late in the day, so we ended up staying at the same (free) campsite, bonding over a meal of lamb sausages.  He was very interesting - he had hiked all of the south island, from Picton to Bluff.  It had taken him about 2.5 months, and now he was exploring the rest of the island by hitchhiking.  He was very thin - I asked if he had lost weight during his hike, but he assured me he has always been this thin.  I wish I had taken a picture of us together, it was a great evening.  Guess I'll just have to remember it!  I asked what he ate while hiking, and he shared he had eaten 6 kilos of peanut butter during those months!  And for dinner every day he had ramen noodles with some mashed potato powder mixed in - which was also his dinner with us.  He said his favorite food was "meat!" We were more than happy to share our sausages, as we had gotten more than enough and couldn't keep leftovers well in our cooler anyway.  We miss you Taku!