Milford Road
The 120km Milford Road (SH94), from Te Anau to Milford Sound, is one of the world’s finest. This two-hour drive can easily take a day if you grab every photo opportunity, and longer if you explore some of the excellent hiking trails outlined on the Milford Road leaflet, available free from the i-SITE in Te Anau. Anywhere else the initial drive beside Lake Te Anau would be considered gorgeous, but it is nothing compared to the Eglinton Valley, where the road penetrates steeper into bush-clad mountains, winding through a subalpine wonderland to the bare rock walls of the seemingly impassable head of the Hollyford River. The Homer Tunnel cuts through to the steep Cleddau Valley before the road descends to Milford Sound.
There’s very little habitation along the way, no shops or petrol, but lots of great camping.
Brief history
Maori parties long used the Milford Road route on their way to seek pounamu at Anita Bay on Milford Sound, but no road existed until two hundred unemployment-relief workers with shovels and wheelbarrows were put on the job in 1929. The greatest challenge was the Homer Tunnel, which wasn’t finally completed until 1953.
Hikes from the Milford Road
Old-timers grumble about tourists wasting their time, effort and money on prize tramps like the Milford and the Routeburn when so many excellent, easily accessible walks are on the Milford Road.
Lake Gunn Nature Walk (3km loop; 45min; negligible ascent). Wheelchair-accessible nature walk with interpretive panels. Starts 75km north of Te Anau.
The Divide to Key Summit (5km return; 2–3hr; 400m ascent). Panoramic views (when it’s not raining) over three valley systems are the reward for this tramp along the western portion of the Routeburn Track. Starts 84km north of Te Anau.
Lake Marian (5km return; 2–3hr; 400m ascent). Picturesque ascent to a scenic alpine lake, passing pretty cataracts (30–40min return), where boardwalks are cantilevered from the rock. Starts 1km along Lower Hollyford Rd, 88km north of Te Anau.
Homer Hut to Gertrude Saddle (10km return; 3–5hr; 600m ascent). This hike starts relatively gently up the dramatic Gertrude Valley, ringed by sheer rock walls. The track then becomes a steep route marked by snow poles and cairns up the final ascent to the saddle where there’s a wonderful view of Milford Sound and the 2756m Mount Tutoko, Fiordland’s highest peak. Starts 98km north of Te Anau, just by the Homer Hut.
The Hollyford Track
Long, but mostly flat, the Hollyford Track (56km; 3–4 days one-way) runs from the end of the Hollyford Valley road to Martins Bay following Fiordland’s longest valley. It is essentially a fiord that never quite formed and was never flooded by the sea.
The joy of the Hollyford is not in the sense of achievement that comes from scaling alpine passes, but in the appreciation of the dramatic mountain scenery and the kahikatea, rimu and matai bush with an understorey of wineberry, fuchsia and fern. At Martins Bay, Long Reef has a resident fur seal colony, and from September to December you might spot rare Fiordland crested penguins (tawaki) nesting among the scrub and rocks.
The track is a one-way tramp, requiring three to four days’ backtracking – unless you’re flash enough to fly out from the airstrip at Martins Bay or tough enough to continue around a long, difficult and remote loop known as the Pyke–Big Bay Route (9–10 days total; consult DOC’s Pyke–Big Bay Route leaflet for details).
Shortening the way to Milford
Everyone wants to go to Milford Sound, but it is a long way from the rest of the country, so boosters are forever promoting ways to shorten the journey.
The original “Southland–Westland Link” intended to put a road in from Jackson Bay on the West Coast to Milford via the Hollyford Valley. The current Hollyford Valley Road was approved in 1936, but only 16km of it was built. Some believe an 80km toll road connecting this with Jackson Bay is the region’s infrastructure key.
In the 1990s the Ngai Tahu iwi hoped to install a monorail along the Greenstone Valley, the shortest route from Queenstown to The Divide, just 40km east of Milford Sound. An alliance of greenies and outdoor enthusiasts raised enough public concern to scupper that.
Recently, a $160-million, 11km-long tunnel has been proposed from near the start of the Routeburn Track to the Hollyford Valley. The cost will be a barrier, but this scheme perhaps has more legs than others. Passengers will be able to stay on the same vehicle (diesel-electric hybrid buses are suggested) all the way from Queenstown to Milford Sound and the one-way journey time would be halved to a little over two hours.
For every supporter of these ventures in Queenstown, there is an opponent in Te Anau – a town that relies heavily on Milford-bound traffic for its livelihood.
Milford Sound
The most northerly and celebrated of Fiordland’s fifteen fiords is Milford Sound (Piopiotahi) with its vertical sides towering 1200m above the sea and waterfalls plunging from hanging valleys. Some 15km long and mostly less than 1km wide, it is also one of the slenderest fiords – and yes, it is mis-named. Sounds are drowned river valleys whereas this is very much a glacially formed fiord.
It is a wondrous place, though it is difficult to grasp its heroic scale unless your visit coincides with that of one of the great cruise liners – even these formidable vessels are totally dwarfed.
Perhaps counter-intuitively, Milford is at its best in the rain, something that happens on over 180 days a year giving a massive 7m of annual rainfall. Within minutes of a torrential downpour every cliff-face sprouts a waterfall and the place looks even more magical as ethereal mist descends. Indeed, Milford warrants repeated visits: in bright sunshine (yes, it does happen), on a rainy day and even under a blanket of snow.
None of the other fiords quite matches Milford for its spectacular beauty, but what makes Milford special is its accessibility. The tiny airport hardly rests as planes buzz in and out, while busloads of visitors are disgorged from buses onto cruises – all day in the summer and around the middle of the day in spring and autumn.
The crowds can certainly detract from the grandeur, but don’t let that put you off. Driving to Milford Sound and admiring it from the land just doesn’t cut it; you need to get out on the water, either on a cruise or kayaking.
Brief history
Maori know Milford Sound as Piopiotahi (“the single thrush”), and attribute its creation to the god Tu-te-raki-whanoa, who was called away before he could carve a route into the interior, leaving high rock walls. These precipitous routes are now known as the Homer and Mackinnon passes, probably first used by Maori who came to collect pounamu. The first European known to have sailed into Piopiotahi was sealer John Grono who, in 1823, named the fiord Milford Haven after his home port in south Wales. The main river flowing into the Welsh Milford is the Cleddau, so naturally the river at the head of the fiord is so named.
The earliest settler was Scot Donald Sutherland, who arrived with his dog, John O’Groat, in 1877; he promptly set a series of thatched huts beside the freshwater basin of what he called the “City of Milford”, funding his explorations by guiding small numbers of visitors who had heard tell of the scenic wonder.
All visitors arrived by boat or walked the Milford Track until 1953 when the road through the Homer Tunnel was finally completed, paving the way for the phalanxes of buses that disgorge tourists onto cruises.
Milford’s fragile ecosystem
The predations of today’s influx of visitors and the operation of a small fishing fleet have necessitated strategies to preserve the fragile ecosystem. Like all fiords, Milford Sound has an entrance sill at its mouth, in this case only 70m below the surface – by comparison, the deepest point is almost 450m. This minimizes the water’s natural recirculation and hinders the mixing of sea water and the vast quantities of fresh water that pour into the fiord, creating the strange phenomenon of deep water emergence. The less-dense tannin-stained fresh surface layer (generally 2–6m deep) builds up, further diminishing the penetration of light, which is already reduced by the all-day shadow cast by the fiord walls. The result is a relatively barren inter-tidal zone that protects a narrow – but wonderfully rich and extremely fragile – band of light-shy red and black corals; these normally grow only at much greater depths, but thrive here in the dark conditions. Unfortunately, Milford’s fishing fleet use crayfish pots, which tend to shear off anything that grows on the fiord’s walls. A marine reserve has been set up along the northeastern shore, where all such activity is prohibited, but really this is far too small and conservation groups are campaigning for its extension.
The Milford Track
More than any other Great Walk, the Milford Track (54km; 4 days) is a Kiwi icon. Its exalted reputation is part accident and part history but there’s no doubt that the Milford Track is wonderful and includes some of Fiordland’s finest scenery. The track starts at the head of Lake Te Anau and follows the Clinton River into the heart of the mountains, climbing over the spectacular Mackinnon Pass before tracing the Arthur River to Milford Sound.
Some disparage the track as over-regimented, expensive and not especially varied, while others complain that the huts are badly spaced and lurk below the tree line among the sandflies. While these criticisms aren’t unfounded – the tramp costs around $340 in hut and transport fees alone – the track is well managed and maintained, the huts clean and unobtrusive, and because everyone’s going in the same direction you can charge ahead (or lag behind) and hike all day without seeing a soul. The Milford is also tougher than many people expect, packing the only hard climb and a dash for the boat at Milford Sound into the last two days.
Brief history
It is likely that Maori paced the Arthur and Clinton valleys in search of pounamu, but there is little direct evidence. The first Europeans to explore were Scotsmen Donald Sutherland and John Mackay who in 1880 blazed a trail up the Arthur Valley from Milford Sound. The story goes that while working their way up the valley they came upon the magnificent Mackay Falls and tossed a coin to decide who would name it, on the understanding that the loser would name the next waterfall. Mackay won the toss but rued his good fortune when, days later, they stumbled across the much more famous and lofty Sutherland Falls. They may well have climbed the adjacent Mackinnon Pass, but the honour of naming it went to Quintin McKinnon who, with his companion Ernest Mitchell, reached it in 1888 after having been commissioned by the Otago Chief Surveyor, C.W. Adams, to cut a path up the Clinton Valley.
Tourists arrive
The route was finally pushed through in mid-October 1888 and the first tourists followed a year later, guided by McKinnon. The greatest fillip came in 1908 when a writer submitted her account of the Milford Track to the editor of London’s Spectator. She had declared it “A Notable Walk” but, in a fit of editorial hyperbole, the editor re-titled the piece “The Finest Walk in the World”. From 1903 until 1966 the government held a monopoly on the track, allowing only guided walkers; the huts were supplied by packhorses, a system that wasn’t retired until 1969.
Wider public access was only achieved after the Otago Tramping Club challenged the government’s policy by tramping the Milford in 1964. Huts were built in 1966 and thefirst independent parties came through later that year.
The Southern Scenic Route
While in Fiordland, don’t miss out on the beautiful fringe country, where the fertile sheep paddocks of Southland butt up against the remote country of Fiordland National Park. The region’s towns are linked by the underrated, pastoral charms of the Southern Scenic Route (w southernscenicroute.co.nz), a series of small roads where sheep are the primary traffic hazard. From Te Anau it runs via Manapouri to SH99, following the valley of the Waiau River to the cave-pocked limestone country around Clifden. A minor road cuts west to Lake Hauroko, access point for the Dusky Track, while the Southern Scenic Route continues south through the small service town of Tuatapere (the base for hiking the Hump Ridge and South Coast tracks), to estuary-side Riverton and on to Invercargill.
The Hump Ridge and South Coast Tracks
Tuatapere is the base for two excellent and markedly different hiking experiences: the traditional South Coast Track and the Hump Ridge Track, with its engaging combination of coastal walking, historic remains, subalpine country and relatively sophisticated huts. Both are covered on DOC’s Southern Fiordland Tracks leaflet.
Both tracks share historically interesting kilometres of coastal walking, following a portion of the 1896 track cut 100km along the south coast to gold-mining settlements around the southernmost fiord of Preservation Inlet. This paved the way for woodcutters, who arrived en masse in the 1920s. Logs were transported to the mills on tramways, which crossed the burns and gullies on viaducts – four of the finest have been faithfully restored, including the 125m bridge over Percy Burn that stands 35m high in the middle. The remains of the former mill village of Port Craig – wharf, rusting machinery, crumbling fireplaces – are equally fascinating.
The trailhead for both tracks is the Rarakau car park, 20km west of Tuatapere, accessible by bus organized through the Hump Ridge Track office; there’s secure parking here. Jetboat operators will pick up and drop off at the Wairaurahiri rivermouth, allowing you to walk sections of the tracks combined with a ride on the Wairaurahiri River.
The South Coast Track
The South Coast Track slices through the largest area of lowland rainforest in New Zealand. Although it is easy going it takes the best part of four days to reach Big River and you’ll just have to turn around and walk back unless you prearrange a jetboat out up the Wairaurahiri River. A popular alternative is to make a three-day excursion, staying at DOC’s Port Craig School Hut, and exploring the environs. Three more huts spaced four to seven hours’ walk apart provide accommodation, and camping is free.