Accidentally discovered by a Welshman, lost in a storm and named after Milford Haven, his home town. Right that's the history lesson, now for the present...






Dark brooding clouds hang over the horizon and there is rain in the air, the first for three weeks - it could just spoil the Milford Sound cruise!

The drive in from Te Anau was fabulomundouso (I've run out of superlatives so I'm making them up), foot hills surrounding the lakes give way to vertical cliff faces, water cascading down from snow, piled high on the peaks. The wind chases the angry clouds away and the sun makes it's appearance.





Glaciers, cut these valleys and they did a bloody good job. Snow melt gathers to form creeks, creeks to form rivers which in turn cut their own way through the land.





Kathy heeds the danger signs...





Before clambering into the ice caves for the obligatory photo op ( who said she would not try dangerous sports!)





A smile or a worried grimace?





We're lucky, the wind drops and Mitre peak is reflected in all it's glory.





Our boat (Milford Mariner) and berth for the night cruises in, we board and set out for the next adventure.
We cruise, we kayak (kathy is spectacularly bad at this), we swim, dine, drink & collapse into bed at 10.30! Early? In fact we and new Berliner friends are the last to bed, somehow the rest of the guests are a SAGA party and we are the youngsters!

Breaky starts at 7am, the early to bed, early to rise SAGA bunch are already circling the buffet, fortunately there's food aplenty.





We cruise back through the sound as the sun rises over the mountains, dolphins and seals chase the boat's bow wave and treat us to some acrobatic showmanship.






A great way to end the cruise, and we still have that amazing scenic drive to get back to civilization!