Fiordland National Park had been my number one place to go see, and it did not disappoint. Not even a little. I'd had a few reservations about it because most guidbooks only had one or two of the same pictures of the place, and also because we have plenty of fjords up here in Alaska. I live right next to one. I have to admit though, these New Zealand fjords are the steepest i've seen, and the mountains have their own unique character.
Usually i throw out tons of pictures for posting on this blog, but in this case i find myself unable to whittle down the pile. As we finally got into areas where the valleys were deeper and steeper i found myself making declarations that i would be back to do tons of hiking here someday. Then, as we got towards the end of the road, i found myself thinking things like, "I think i want to live here."
At first the mountains reminded me of the Talkeetnas near my house.
We got very lucky with the weather. It was mostly overcast when we left town and i was worried that it would get worse. Our bad strech of weather was over though, and i'd been closely studying the weather forcasts for the country for days. Although the news wasn't encouraging, I made the decision that the day had come, and i guessed right.
Only one road goes into the park, and it's a dead end. I'm a little surprised about that since the park is huge. It pretty much is the entire soutwest coast of New Zealand's South Island. At some point early on while driving through beech forests, you cross over a fault and into a land made of completely different rocks than the rest of the island. The rocks, gneiss and other hard substances, came from somewhere else long forgotten and have replaced the limestone that makes up the neighboring mountains. The limestones, in turn, have been shoved hundreds of miles north to the other end of the island.
Beech trees are now on my favorite trees list.
The scale of things was hard to convey at times. This is an enormous cliff with a river flowing along the base of it.
The scenery got more dramatic as we neared the backbone of the island.
Going down the tunnel.
Coming out the tunnel on the other side was a huge surprise. As you enter the tunnel from the east you are on the valley floor. Then after driving a mile downhill you emerge from a massive cliff face high above one of the most impressive mountain valley's i've ever seen. It had an effect similar to driving through the Zion Tunnel from east to west, or hiking through Ptarmigan Tunnel in Glacier National Park.
Maree was really happy to find this bench hidden on top of this little hill.
A couple of the vintage Bently's we saw.
Many mountains didn't look at all climbable, for non technical climbers.
Driving down the west side of the park we had to make one unexpected stop because of this mysterious signt that read simply, "The Chasm". We had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but it sounded super macho, so we had to have a look. It was a good decision because it was one of the few nice trails that offered immediate access to a very impressive area of the forest. I'd been looking at the forest all day as we drove through it but there were very few places along the road where you could safely pull over, and surprisingly few trails. The Chasm turned out to be an impressive slot canyon in the middle of a primeval forest. The river, which was quite low due to the months long drought suddenly plunged down into a deep pit, through a narrow slot canyon and over another falls as the gorge widened.
The creek enters The Chasm while it is still far upvalley.
Maree is standing on the bridge overlooking the pit. Logs on the ledges indicate that the water is much more violent at times.
This is a wide angel shot that makes the slot canyon look tiny. It actually was really cool and looked just like something out of Zion National Park, with cool wavy rock and misty light beams. I had already run once back to the car and climbed haphazardly down a muddly slope to get a view of these falls, so i passed up doing it once again to go grab the other lense.
Just outside the slot canyon the water calmed and looked like a great place to swim.
The road ends at the ocean, in a large beautiful fjord called Milford Sound. There is a lodge, and it was obvious that the smart thing to do was to make reservations long in advance in order to stay in such a spectacular location. We were too late to go into the visitor's center so i don't know how many things you can do from from the end of the road. I know you can take boat tours of some of the nearby fjords and even be dropped off in other fjords to start off on long multi-day hikes through remote country, spending each night in a posh cabin (by U.S. standards).
I couldn't get over how incredibly steep the cliffs were.
The hotel and visitor center at the end of the road.
We did eat at the one available bar/restaurant. That was fortunate because there didn't appear to be anywhere else to get food that was still open, and i was ready to kill for sustenance. The restaurant actually had good food and beer, very unusual for a national park restaurant. More importantly though, it had a good vibe, and i could tell the employees who worked there were happy to be in such a place. I was reminded of the vibe i felt when i worked in Glacier Park, and that made me a little bit jealous. That good atmosphere wasn't present in all the parks i worked in, it's actually pretty rare.
On the drive back in the late evening light, everything looked completely different. Also, it seemed like we were the last people out on the road. I think i passed two cars the whole 2 hour drive back.
It was too bad the earth was rotating, but we were treated to a long sunset on the drive back that made the valleys look completely different than what we had seen earlier in the day. We had decided though, since everything was so spectacular, to come back the next day to do a hike.
It was a beautiful evening. You could see surprisingly well long after sunset.
