Te Anau and Milford Sound

Yesterday we took another impressive scenic drive southwest from Queenstown, crossing hills and heading over mountain passes. We are now in the Southern Alps, a chain of snow capped mountains that run up along the west coast of New Zealand, having been thrust up when the Australian and New Zealand tectonic plates pushed away from each other.

We arrived in Te Anau, a small town supported by tourism and farming. Tourists like us use it as a launch point for visits to the Fiordland National Park mainly. Once in town, we checked into our accommodations and enjoyed the warm sunny weather, which is rare for this area, known for its heavy rain and cool temperatures year round. I actually put on shorts and sandals during the afternoon, which was a first for me in New Zealand.

The sun felt strangely more intense on this sunny day than in Ottawa Canada, and I was curious if it was just me or if there was something to this. The closer to the equator you get, the more the sun is directly overhead and the more UV exposure you get. But since Ottawa and New Zealand are at the same latitude (Ottawa being 45 degrees north and here being 45 degrees south), you'd think we'd experience the same UV levels. It turns out that peak UV index ratings are significantly higher here in New Zealand than in Canada. The reason is New Zealand is near a hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica. Also the earth is a little closer to the sun during the southern hemisphere's spring and summer than during the northern hemisphere's spring and summer. This goes a long way to explaining why New Zealand has the highest skin cancer rates in the world.

On Wednesday we drove from Te Anau to Milford Sound and back. Milford Sound is a fiord inlet. It provides access down a channel to the Tasmanian Sea, that part of the Pacific Ocean between New Zealand and Australia. We really felt the cold wind blow in from the west as we approached the coast. These trade winds are known as the roaring 40's, and dump huge amounts of rain on this area.

We have fiords too in British Columbia and Newfoundland but I've never visited them. Fiords were formed long ago during an ice age by glaciers that carved out channels between the mountains; the glaciers have since melted away and are now filled with water as sea levels rose. They really are beautiful to see, as the mountains rise out of the narrow channels on both sides.

We made some stops along the way to Milford sound for short hikes and to check out the views. We couldn't help but crane our necks on the drive along the way, looking straight up at grey granite walls, covered in small waterfalls with piles of snow at the base of each waterfall.

A surprise at one stop was Kea birds, these large parrots that live in the mountains. They were really bold and would come up to us looking for food and jump onto our car. I couldn't shoo one off the hood of our car so I just started driving to get him to fly off.

As we trekked around to a lake at a stop along the way, we found the trees and forest floor were covered in a bright green moss, and many of the huge trees were a deep red colour. Reminded me a lot of the west coast of Vancouver island.

Here's John at a rest stop along the way.