Fiords and Waterfalls

 My blog posts are in no particular order in case you are trying to follow us on our cruise. As I look at photos and try to organize them, an idea emerges and a blog post is born.

Our cruise started on the north end of New Zealand at the largest city, Auckland. We traveled south stopping at 3 more ports on the north island and 2 ports on the south island before ship rounded the southern tip of New Zealand and cruised into the Fiordland National Park, a UNESCO site. Dusky Sound, Doubtful Sound, and Milford Sound are actually fiords. This was the beginning of 3 days at sea. 

cruise map

The clouds and morning sunlight made for some beautiful photos like this one and the one on my facebook page. The water was so calm and inky black in color due to the fresh water run-off lying six feet above the sea water.

I have no names for the waterfalls we saw. I only know they are waterfalls produced by the rainforest rainfall and not from glaciers. (Although there are glaciers farther inland of the fiords.) I also do not know if this is the Dusky Sound area or Doubtful Sound as there was nothing (including the location on my photo app) to tell us where we were other than in the ocean and NOT inland in the fiords.

This is probably Dusky Sound because of the time of day and our first of the three sounds. Dusky Fiord is the largest of the fiords and home to seals, dolphins and sometimes whales. Ships like the tour boats we saw would have a much better chance of seeing wildlife as they can enter the fiord; the cruise ship could not.

Captain Cook name this area Dusky Bay in 1770. There are no roads to Dusky Sound or Doubtful Sound. The fiords can only be reached by planes or boats.

The Fiordland National Park is home to Fiordland Penguins.

Around 11:00 AM we entered what my phone labeled as Mararoa Waimea Ward, the area around the Mararoa River and community of the same name of 850 people (and a primary school) on the mainland far from the mouth of the fiord. This would also be the area of Milford Sound because the location labels did not change for rest of the day.

a fishing boat

stunning colors and scenery

not a waterfall, but an interesting formation

The Milford Fiord receives around 250 inches of rainfall a year. The Fiordland National Park is one of the wettest areas on earth.

It takes 2-3 hours to reach Milford Sound by car from the nearest community, Te Anau. From Queensland, the nearest largest city, the trip by car or bus can be 10-12 hours. But it is at Milford Sound where tour boats can be found to visit the splendor of the Fiordland National Park.

The tour boats were loaded with people going to places our cruise ship could not.

Here is a link to a map of the area giving you a better idea of all we did NOT see. Map of Fiordland National Park

This was the area where our cruise ship turned around about 5:00 PM leaving Fiordland National Park. I read that nearly 400,000 people (one source said a million) visit Milford Sound each year labeling it "the eighth wonder of the world" according to Rudyard Kipling.

I started taking photos at 9:16 AM that day and my last photo was taken at 5:03 PM. Although we did not see any wildlife (we had binoculars) the scenery more than made up for the lack of fauna. 

barf bags

When we left Milford Sound we began our trip through the Tasman Sea where the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean meet with the colder waters of the Antarctic Ocean. Thus began two days of rough cruising, as evidenced by the barf bags distributed throughout the ship. We had an inside cabin so the rocking and rolling was good for sleeping. Those with outside cabins heard more of the impact when the ship hit the waves. We all walked like drunken sailors those two days!

Margarita Tasting

None of the 3 of us (Hubby, OFD nor I) are bothered by motion sickness so OFD and I decided to check out the Margarita tasting class offered on one of our sea days. Of course I do not remember any of the names of the six drinks, but I did learn that curaçao is basically Triple Sec with blue food coloring! I did not like the chili flavored one on the bottom left. One of them was peach flavored and quite tasty. I also learned the difference between tequila (produced from the blue agave plant) and mezcal (produced from any type of agave plant). Mezcal has a smokey flavor and I did not enjoy that drink either.

cruise ship wake and rough seas

photo shot from at least 7 stories above the Tasman Sea