Our Milford Sound Experience

Today we were booked in for a tour of Milford Sound. We were buzzing with excitement and anticipation, because really we had no idea what to expect. We woke early and would you believe, it was raining. And not just soft pretty rain, but heavy, drench your clothes (Dutch) rain…;)

It’s pretty accurate for you to assume that our initial response was devastation and sadness. We didn’t expect it to rain and were automatically assuming it would be a bad day and tour because of it.

But before we went off to a ‘bad’ boat tour, we ate some breakfast in the lush campers kitchen. After that we reluctantly but still somewhat excitedly set off to the town and to waited to board the boat.

The tour was not cancelled yay! In fact, even though it was literally bucketing down, it turns out first that the weather was normal, and in addition it made for an even more spectacular tour. Would you believe that?!

So on the boat we went, with somewhat of a run. It was a small boat, which we had selected on purpose to have a more ‘close up’ experience. The tour company was Southern Discoveries. We were purposefully one of the first groups on the smallish boat, and were rewarded with a booth on the top level inside. Then off we went.

As we set off our view of the sound was pretty minimal, there was a thick fog surrounding the top of the mountains obscuring our view.

Alex and Bob managed to go stand with the captain and talk about the tour and weather etc. It turns out that yes given Milford Sound is surrounded by tropical rainforest, rainfall was a given. And to top it off, given the snow the day before, it then melting in combination with the rain currently pouring down, meant we would have one of the best days on the tour. That was because we would see hundreds and hundreds, if not millions of waterfalls.

You see Milford Sound has two all year round waterfalls, but otherwise if it hadn’t rained recently or been currently raining, then you wouldn’t see as many waterfalls as we witnessed. And why would you automatically think rain would be a good thing on a boat tour? For you to see and photograph the surrounding area? No it’s only us? Well either way, we were thrilled when we found out the rain was normal, and even happier when we realised we were seeing an amazing amount of waterfalls that were not always common.

And really even though there is mist everywhere and vision is a little cloudy, how amazing is Milford Sound?!

So throughout the boat tour we went outside with raincoats on to capture some pictures, only getting a little wet each time. And at one particular point however they announced over the intercom that we would be approaching a waterfall and stopping underneath it. The particular term they used was in fact ‘the glacial facial’. Now we were reluctant to go out, and at first said no. However once all four of us looked at each other, we all said YOLO. We donned our coats and outside we went to the bow of the boat. In prime position, as the boat eased its way into the waterfall, we were blown away. Literally the water coming off the waterfall blew us back and we were drenched. Pretty much any area the rain jackets did not cover, we were soaked.

But seriously what an amazing thing to do! We laughed so much, and yes we were soaked and cold afterwards, but we can now say that we have had a glacial facial on Milford Sound. There is footage of these few minutes and when we figure out how to load them on the blog we will share them with you because it’s pure hilarious. But until then, we hope you can enjoy our photos from the experience and appreciate the amazingness that is Milford Sound!

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