milford sound (milford part 1) (museum quest part 9)

Location: Milford Sound

Baskets Left: 3

well despite things being a lot more stressful on ms. rhonwyn's assignment of getting rid of these maori artifacts, i can say that the first part of my latest stop milford sound ranks as one of the most AMAZING things i've ever seen (i know i've said that a lot this week... basically the fiordland as a whole place is my favourite on earth at moment!!!).

it is stressful none the less. due to my being dumb, and peeking in one of the baskets i've overdosed myself with mystic energy. meaning that i'm theoritically trackable by all sorts of scary things... i haven't run into any yet so i'm not sure they are following me, but i don't really want to find out...

so i'm going to book it through milford sound as fast as i can. the main reason there is only one way in and out of the place, and if i get caught by something in the region it'll be hard to escape!

though why i'd want to escape is beyond me...

the walk from the parking lot alone has been incredible.

this very forest was one of the filming sites for walking with dinosaurs... okay and a bunch of other more "important" movies... one of them had a lord ring in it or something...

approaching the milford port (the settlement here is pretty sparce actually. turns out that milford is in the greater fiordland national park, and as of such you can't build a lot in it... so there's a port, air strip, and motel/resturant/pathetic gas station/bar here... that's IT!) what was i saying again?

oh yeah!

so to get to the port you go through the amazing jungle i mentioned a second ago, and than this weird covered stretch of sidewalk... wonder why it's covered?

not too much later i was at the port. despite it being first thing in the morning there were buses and heaps of people about it... though the parking lot was pretty empty. i wondered what it was going to be like once the day got rolling...

i double checked the bundle ms. rhonwyn had assembled for me. she'd taken the liberaty of getting me a pre arranged boarding pass for any of the boats i might need.

the inside of the port was fairly mellow. mostly a big empty lobby, but all the surrounding walls were tour company kiosks. compared to some places i'd been (mostly in canada) it was pretty sparcely decorated.

though i did notice three big things on the walls...

they were giant sand flies... which if you've never heard of or encountered before are pretty much the same thing as canadian black flies. their tiny as, and itchy as if they bite... ten times more itchy than a mozzy bite... i'm just glad they have trouble getting through my scales (though sadly they can get through the weaker skin between my scales BOO!).

the size of these ones had me a little troubled. had my old boss mike at the vancouver eco centre kept on with his insane plot to produce monster size insects?!?


i decided to keep clear of these sand flies. at that size they probably would be able to get through even larry's skin!

wow a cool maori statue of someone... er something?

according to the sign this was a maori demi-god named tu-te-raki-whanoa. he carved the extreme terrian of milford out of the earth, and is a pretty well respected mythical dude...

though i'd been meaning to brush up on all things maori (especially since ms. rhonwyn hasn't been able to tell me more about the maori connection to my mission) i decided dwelling reading wasn't an option till i hit the open road again.

so out i ventured onto the peer to catch a boat to take me around the sound.

immediately the spectacle and awe of the area struck me! i mean just look at that... the picture only captures a fraction of it. trust me!

this picture does a little better, but still if you can come down here and check out milford do it!

looking at this unbelievable water scape i was in total harmony with the awesomeness of this current part of the assignment.

boarding one of the many boats that sail around the sound i was off within 10 minutes...

if a picture is worth a 1000 words people of the innerweb than with this post you can call me a master novel writer!

heading off into the sound i was going to learn why not only modern tourists love to check out the area, but also its connection to the maori...

one of the first things i discovered was that it rain a LOT in milford! in fact if it doesn't rain for just 5 days in a row they consider it a drought in the area...

because of all that rain a few things happen. first thing you notice are tons of little water falls everywhere as that run off pours down the mountains. second the water is a funny bright light blue. this is in fact all that fresh rain water pouring ontop of the salty ocean water so much that it doesn't mix properly. so there ends up being a layer of fresh water a few metres thick in the sound. something i would quickly learn that has a BIG impact on the local ecology...

all that dawned on me immediately was that i'd never seen anywhere else like it in the world.

sure it kinda looked like the rockie mountains with a ocean in the middle of them, but they didn't have the crazy waterfalls or extreme plants like milford...

now there are waterfalls in milford and then there are WATERFALLS in milford! keep in mind that i'm standing a few km from that fall off in the distance...

time for another chapter on my photo novel...

the boat made some nice close up stops by the mountains/waters edge for us to check out things.

first we checked out the geology. this whole area is composed of volcanic rocks (so no fossils... sad). in these you get many interesting granites and marbles, but most special of all is new zealand jade aka greenstone.

a substance of mega importance to the maori! they make everything from weapons to jewelry from the stuff. this is one of the few places in the world it comes from!!!

the extreme layout of the mountains and the ocean is due to a very familiar geologic force to me. glacial erosion. alberta had tons of that happen. well here same thing. the huge heavy chunks of ice carved out this fjord (it shouldn't be called a sound because it is technically a fjord!).

which explains the extreme slope and angles of these mountains.

it is kinda cool how all these factors add together into... well this...
man oh man i was into this place, let me tell you!
there were more waterfalls than i could take photos of...

it was all a bit to take in to be honest.
i know i said it about doubtful sound, but milford could also very easily be the lost world.

the trip was going super slow due to spectical of what i was seeing, but super fast at the same time.
it was pretty obvious why this was considered a special place by the maori (i'd be surprised to find anyone who won't think the same thing!)... at the same time nothing had happened to the baskets...

to be honest that was a little alarming. if something was going to happen with them clearly it was going to happen here...

we'd been out for almost two hours, and the baskets weren't effected at all by the sound (technically fjord!)...

there wasn't much more milford for me or the baskets to cover. we were approaching the mouth of the whole place, and were going to be back tracking.

not that the opening to milford is that unimpressive... well actually i guess it sort of is. because of an extreme bend at it's mouth you don't really notice it from the ocean. the great explore james cook missed it during his exploration of the west coast of new zealand...

the one thing that was plainly clear was the difference in color between the fresh water layer and normal salt water. in this picture you can see the bright light blue of the fresh water along the edge of the shore.

this was a problem though. if these stupid baskets of ms. rhonwyn's were going to react to cool things you'd think this would be the place. we'd done the whole thing, and indeed nothing...

i grew worried. backtracking was going to take almost 2 hours.

not only did this leave me in the isolate fiordland longer, but there must be something i was missing about these baskets (i really should look up what mana means).

the fun was bleeding from the situation, despite the fact we drew closer to one of the most amazing parts of milford. the stirling waterfall...

stirling is one of the only falls around here NOT caused by rainfall, but rather glacial meltwater. meaning not only does it run year round no matter the weather, but it also has a limited lifespan as the glacier that feeds it slowly retreats towards nothingness.

okay so the sight of this grand fall did manage to suck me out of my worry. if only for a moment.

thing was the captain was going to bring the boat in for a close look... a real close look!

compared to the other small water falls stirling is a beast!

getting close to it, you sure feel it let me tell you!

i got so cold that i needed to retreat into the boat to try and dry off!

a few minutes later an announcement came over the PA system. we were going to stop at the under water observatory, and all passengers who wanted to check out the "unique" underwater ecosystem of milford should get off here to check it out.

of course! this was it i thought...

i needed to take the baskets here!

so off i got.

they had an alright info centre on the top. the real attraction i learned though was below me...

you see the underwater observatory was just that, an underwater installation. down there you could see the rather special coral gardens...

basically what these cunning kiwis had done was stick a giant tube down into the ocean.

so what you got was an air aquarium full of people...

into the water world of fish and coral...

definately one of the more creative and neat ways to see fish i've seen in a long time.

the main attraction of the coral gardens were the very rarely seen black corals. these are normally a very deep water coral that doesn't occur anywhere near the surface. meaning that few people see them... except here.

due to that fresh water layer up top all sorts of things change in the sound (again really a fjord!) that tricks the coral into thinking that it is in a deep ocean setting. so they grow mere metres below the surface.

man oh man are they pretty.

throwing me off for a couple minutes was the fact they were ghostly white as opposed to "black" like their name. turns out that in the olden days the only way old time sailors saw these corals was after they were dead and lost their color, and turned well black. kinda funny origin of a name if you ask me!

there were all sorts of cool and pretty fish swimming around too.





even more cool looking out just beyond the corals appeared to be a galaxy of... well technically fish... but they looked like stars. there was that many of them, and they were that small.

around the observatory windows they'd transplanted the whole black coral ecosystem. so that you got a front row seat to all the critters interactions and lifestyles.

definately the highlight though were the ubber pretty and kinda eerie black corals though.

after spending 30 minutes down here though i began to feel the pressure again... the baskets were still their boring dusty old selves!

fortunetly another tour boat showed up quickly after i made this realization. hastily i made my way to the surface to head back to the port, and to make my way out of the fiordland (though it saddened me to have to do so).

as the boat jetted away from the observatory, and back towards the port i tried to relax.

i mean ms. rhonwyn was pretty insistent that something was after these baskets, but she had no idea what it was... well other than it was something maori related...

maybe she just watched too many movies...

more to the point what were the odds it'd know i was here at milford?

yeah i thought to myself. why panic? even if this thing hunting you figured out i was in the fiordland due to my opening the basket at doubtful sound, what were the odds it'd know i was heading here to milford?

to be honest despite the odds i should have taken the bet...

back at the port i had a real unpleasant surprise waiting for me, and my fun little "assignment" was about to become a full on quest!!!

to be continued...