New Zealand - Day 15

Up early and on the road by 0615 for the drive to Milford Sound. Our guides are great and provided breakfast in the van. 

We drove to Milford sound stopping by Mirror Lakes on the way where I saw this guy.

New Zealand Scaup

Milford sound is really a fjord (do you know the difference between a fjord and a sound?). The road to Milford sound is the most dangerous in New Zealand because of constant rock slides and distract drivers. There's a special agency that maintains the road. One of their jobs is to clean roadkill every morning at dawn (any guess what is  the daily roadkill count in New Zealand?).

Because we cross the East-West divide, the road actually goes through a 1.5km Homer tunnel at the end of a valley to reach into Milford sound.

The area is composed of these wonderful U shaped valleys left over from the glaciers.

We took a boat down the sound to where it entered the Tasman Sea. 

The walls of Milford sound are straight up for between 3000 to 6000ft and covered with waterfalls.

Stirling falls 

The views of the sound were incredible.

Looking out into the Tasman sea

We saw dolphins at the mouth of the sound and a seal catching some sunshine.

Dolphins 

Fur seal

We then drove back towards Te Anau and stopped for a hike to Key Summit along the Routeburn track where this guy was terrorizing the cars in the parking lot. Keas have no fear of people and will jump into a car to take things.

Kea

The hike was beautiful with incredible views of the mountains at the top.

Perfect U shaped hanging valley with Lake Marian 

Looking down at road to Te Anau

Along the trail we saw 2 special birds.

South Island Robin

Kaka

Answers:

A fjord is created when a glacially formed valley is filled with ocean water while a sound is created when a river formed valley is filled with ocean water. So all the sounds in New Zealand are really fjords.

New Zealand has 68,000 roadkill per day according to our guides.