Driving and Hiking the Milford Sound Road

December 28, 2014

We woke up to a beautiful sunshine-filled morning.  It was a great start to the day, just looking out at the lake with the sun on the mountains.

David and I had a cup of coffee together before the kids woke up.  We had bought scones and clotted cream at the store last night, so we had scones with jam and clotted cream, YUM! It was also so nice to sit at the breakfast bar in the living room and have this view of the lake.

Then it was off to our day of hikes along the drive to Milford Sound here in Fjordland.  It was very much like being in Montana.

We stopped at Mirror Lakes to snap some view pics.

I really liked the fact that they had this sign upside down so that it reads properly in the reflection.

The drive was beautiful, especially with all of the lupins blooming along the road.  We stopped in this place and took pictures because the flowers were so pretty.  

Our longest hike was the Key Summit hike.  It was supposed to be a 3 hour round trip hike up to the summit and back.  We decided to pack a lunch and have lunch at the top.  We figured we should be able to make it by 12:30 or 1:00 p.m.

It was a lot of uphill and the kids weren't too happy about it, but it was well worth it.

When we reached the top, we found this out of the way rock and had the best place up there for our luncheon spot.  The views were incredible!  I felt completely energized after spending time up there.  

The kids wanted to hang out for a bit, so David and I went for a walk about the summit...

Came back and hung out at our lunch spot for a bit.

We finished the nature walk at the summit before heading back down.

The views on the way back down were fabulous as well.

The round trip only took us 2 1/2 hours and that was with a long rest for lunch.  We kept driving towards Milford Sound and took a seldom used road to Hollyford where there was an early settler's museum.  It was 8 kilometers down a dirt road and definitely not worth it.  However, there was a lovely hike at the beginning of the turnoff for Hollyford and it started with this swinging bridge that the kids really had a good time shaking around.  

We also stopped at the Chasm and did the short hike there, but the lighting wasn't great for pictures, so we didn't take any.  I think the hike was worth it though, just to see how the water has carved out the rocks.

Our last stop was Milford Sound itself.  We did a bit of a walk around and watched the cruise boats come and go.

It was really windy, so we were pretty happy that we didn't have to kayak in that. It was nice to go out to the end of the jetty and sit and relax.

We went into the ferry building for a look around.

After a full day of hiking everyone was really tired, so we headed back to Te Anau.

It was cooler tonight than last night, in fact it was too cold for me to sit out on the balcony.  Jason and I had wanted to rent one of those sit down bikes and tour around, but we were freezing.  However, still a lovely night and a great place to stay.