Feb 28th - The Sound of Mordor

This evening's campsite is at a place called Mackay's Creek on the Milford Road which is an isolated spot. There is no signal even on the cunning NZ telecom mobile wifi hub - so this will have to be posted tomorrow morning on the road. This place is very Lord of the Rings. We only need a couple of brain dead midgets, an old wedding ring on a string and a shaved monkey on helium for the full effect. But, dear reader, I am leaping ahead.

This morning we rose at stupid O'clock as the Milford Sound is 120km from Te Anau and we wanted to get there before the bulk of the crowds (bussed in from Queenstown) arrived. So we were on the road before the sun pixies had found the crevice nozzle which has always mysteriously become separated from the hoover. Here is a bit they just shoved into a low ravine hoping nobody would notice. 

Words are wretched clumsy things to describe this drive. Suffice it to say that anyone who has the remotest opportunity to come here should grab it with both hands, both feet and anything else they have two of. 

We stopped at Lake Gunn for breakfast and Rick did some fishing. So far it's Trout Athletic 2 Napier Anglers 0 - but as I speak he is hoping to pull one back - standing in his waders in the Mordor river. Fingers crossed!

We then resumed our drive to Milford Sound through the famous Homer tunnel - which enabled tourists to reach the sound for the first time in 1952. The tunnel took 20 years to complete and when you drive through it you can tell why. It is 1.2km hacked out of solid rock. There is 3.8m clearance and our van is 3.5m so we procdeded with caution but without incident. After a steep decent we arrived at this famous stretch of water. We bought tickets for the 11.45 sailing - complete with barbecue lunch and visit to the underwater Discovery Centre - and set off towards the Tasman Sea. Again - words are pretty pointless.

I was interested why one of the world's most beautiful places should have inherited a whole bunch of names from a dreary Welsh container port - but the answer is pretty simple. The first (western) man who accidentally discovered the place when running from a storm in 1812 was a Welsh Seeler called John Grono. He came from Milford Haven so that is what he named the place. But then John Lort Stokes, the captain of a Royal Navy vessel on surveying duty, who coincidentally also came from Milford Haven, changed the name to Milford Sound and added all the other derived names - e.g. Mount Pembroke. In fact, this stretch of water is technically a Fjord (having been created by a glacier) and not a Sound at all. History lesson over!


Once again we were lucky with the weather. Our guide aboard told us that frequently the sea is far too rough to get anywhere near the entrance to the Sound, whereas today we got right out to Anita Bay. Today's record breaking concept album can only be called 'The Milford Sound!'  

After leaving Milford we headed back through the tunnel towards this campsite - but first had to empty wastes at a place called Knob Flats (OK too much information) - but I relate this because it was an instance of the first of a number of 'motor caravan mysteries' we have encountered. 

One can only conclude it must be the evil thargs of Suparon who get caught short while rummaging our lockers for supernatural jewellery.