Milford Road

On our way back from our visit to Milford Sound, we had a little more time so we stopped frequently and took a lot of pictures.

Our first stop allowed us to snap the mightly Cleddau River, named after the Cleddau rivers that feed Milford Haven in South Wales.

A little further up the Cleddau valley, we came upon "The Chasm", a little waterfall where the Cleddau River plunges down a drop of a few metres and which was considered important enough for someone to build a boardwalk to get there. We felt a little disappointed by it but I think that there is often a lot more water flowing.

When we reached the head of the valley, we really knew it; the valley ended rather abruptly.

This must have been a formidable barrier to early explorers. Luckily, someone had built The Homer Tunnel between the head of the Cleddau Valley and the head of the valleys of the Eglington and Hollyford rivers.

On the other end of the Homer Tunnel, we found a big load of ice that still hadn't melted. I was hoping that we'd found a real live glacier but I don't think it was flowing anywhere.

The ice was melting rapidly and the water was flowing underneath the ice:

I noticed that Hannah was standing on the ice immediately above this icy cave and, remembering Dad's stories of cravasses in the Antarctic, I quickly called her off the ice. It was rather worrying to watch a steady procession of people climbing up onto the ice but hey, I thought: If it was that dangerous then someone would have put up a warning sign. Oh, wait, what's this tiny sign?

On the way back, we saw some mountains in the distance.

Finally, we made our way to Lake Gunn DOC Campsite and made camp for the night. All in all, a fun day.