Milford Sound: Fly Cruise Fly
Milford Sound is likely on the itinerary of travellers visiting New Zealand for the first time.
That was what I surmised after spending my first three days in a hostel in Queenstown. My bunkmates changed almost every day and I learnt that all of them have the Milford Sound on their lists! Some self-drive from Queenstown to Milford Sound via Milford Road while travelling with a rental car. The majority took day tours.
However, I did it differently.
I flew from Wanaka to Milford Sound. 🤩
Here’s how my trip went on a wintery day from Wanaka.
I was in New Zealand from 2020 to 2022 on a Working Holiday visa. This post contains affiliate links that cost nothing to you but support my blog! It may also be updated periodically. Cheers!
Rambles you can skip
My trip happened in June 2020 when New Zealand just lifted its internal country-wide lockdown. The local tourism and hospitality industries were finding their footing. With that, my friends and I saw many attractive discounts for otherwise expensive activities.
I recalled a friend who paid less than NZ$100 for a bungy jump at Kawarau Bridge in Queenstown!
As our work in the apple packhouse came to a conclusion, we spent the following month on an epic road trip around the South Island. We visited friends across the island, completed four Great Walks, bungy-jumped, sky-dived, and ate lots of delicious food.
We had finally weathered over our seasonal work and the mundane lockdown! It was now time to enjoy the holiday part of our Working Holiday.
As we were scrolling through the thrilling activities to do within the area in Queenstown, we saw a package that included flying to Milford Sound and a cruise.
Thinking we hadn’t penned Milford Sound in our itinerary yet, and that the flight over the Southern Alps must be stunning in winter, we booked the tour which departed from Wanaka.
And that’s how I visited Milford Sound, and why I can’t contribute much to the road condition of Milford Road, since I travelled via air.
Background of Milford Sound
Carved by nature
Like Doubtful Sound I visited a few months later in Spring, Milford Sound is one of the sounds in Fiordland carved out by glaciers over millions of years.
The Southwestern part of the South Island is one of the three UNESCO sites in New Zealand. Also known as Te Wahipounamu, it is protected for its unique terrain and ecosystem. Its inaccessibility prevented human interference and preserved the land as it is for the study of early landforms and evolution.
Even though the region is called Fiordland, the sounds in Fiordland are not called fiords as the word was not in the English Dictionary then. Sounds are sculpted by the movement of the river and sea. Fiords are chiselled mainly from the movement of glaciers.
First visitors
The first people to arrive were the Maori. According to their legends, the fiords/ sounds in the region were split open by a godly figure Tu Te Raki Whanoa, as safe harbours against the stormy open seas.
Tribes lived in the Milford Sound to fish, hunt and collect the greenstone, pounamu. They called the sound Piopiotahi, over the extinct bird, piopio, that flew over their deceased hero while they were mourning.
Then Mt Cook and his crew arrived in the late 18th century. His arrival spelled the start of intense sealing and whaling in Fiordland.
The Europeans came and plundered the finite resources. When the resources dwindled, they moved inland to farm, only to discover gold later in Queenstown, Arrowtown and the West Coast. This led to the start of the Gold Rush in the late 19th century.
The name Milford was coined by a sealer after Milford Haven in Wales.
Start of a tourist spot
An eccentric explorer from Scotland named Donald Sutherland decided he had enough of conflicts and humans.
He left civilization in 1877 and built a house in Milford Sound with his dog, choosing to live like a hermit. The man trekked and explored the region, discovering beautiful trails and sights like Sutherland Falls, the biggest waterfall in New Zealand was named after him.
Despite living in solitude, he somehow found himself a wife willing to live in the wettest place in New Zealand and one of the wettest in the world!
Milford receives, on average, over 6000 mm of precipitation per annum. In comparison, Singapore’s annual average is 2000 mm.
The Sutherlands couple built the first hotel in Milford Sound to welcome visitors who arrived from trekking on what is now known as the Milford Track. Quintin MacKinnon laid the groundwork to establish the tracks, and his name lives forever after the highest pass, the MacKinnon Pass on the Milford Track.
As the numbers grew when news got out exclaiming the beauty of the region, resources were pooled to drill a pathway to the sound, now known as the Milford Road. Henry Homer took the challenge to make the path possible. His namesake, the Homer Tunnel, greets hundreds of visitors daily.
Travelling to Milford Sound
There are three ways to travel to Milford Sound for the cruise: self-drive, on a shuttle, or flying since the region has a small airport.
Self-drive
The SH94 Milford Road from Te Anau to Milford Sound is a 2-hour drive with many highlights and openings to scenic tracks, like Eglinton Valley, Mirror Lakes, Lake Marian, Key Summit track, trailhead to the Routeburn Track, and the region’s permanent waterfalls.
I’ve heard tales of the beauty and danger of driving the long and narrow Milford Road.
A group of friends crashed their car on the same stretch one wet winter day due to black ice. It was either the rock wall or sheer drop and they were lucky to have survived.
But I’ve also read reviews of others, who commented on the views they saw on a rainy day. They were surrounded by sights of a thousand cascades.
Assess your experience and familiarity with the road conditions of New Zealand before taking this challenge.
Day Tour on the bus
If driving is not your forte or you don’t want to be stressed over it, join a tour from Te Anau or Queenstown.
Let someone drive while you do the sightseeing.
Fly
This is a fun way to travel to Milford Sound!
You get to travel over the Southern Alps, which is very stunning in winter when the mountains are shrouded in snow. Besides, an aerial view of anything reveals more than what we see on the surface, like the remote alpine lakes and glaciers, the Tasman Sea, the rocky terrains in Fiordland, and the small rivers and tributaries that join Milford Sound. Absolutely stunning from the sky!
It cuts down the journey to Milford Sound from Queenstown/ Wanaka/ Te Anau. The only downside is you’d miss the journey via Milford Road, and there’s a risk your flight may be delayed or cancelled if weather conditions are bad.
My Milford Sound Fly-Cruise-Fly Experience
Booking the tour
I booked my tour through bookme for an attractive price of NZ$349 in Jun 2020. Prices are not up to NZ$670. Bookme sometimes has discounts, but I heard from others that they are less frequent nowadays.
The same tour from Wanaka can also be found on GetYourGuide. If this is your first time using them, they may have newcomer’s promo codes and seasonal discounts.
There’s another fly-cruise-fly tour that flies from Queenstown in Klook. I’d prefer to use Klook since I’ve used it several times on my other trips like visiting Ayutthaya, Thailand, Hue, Vietnam, and booking my ferry rides to Lazarus Island in Singapore. You accrue points once a trip is completed, which can be used to pay for future trips.
For those who think flying is beyond their budget, you could join a tour from Queenstown/ Te Anau to Milford Sound that stops at key sights on Milford Road, or buy the ticket in advance and make the scenic drive yourself. Find your rentals here.
I’d suggest staying a night in the lodge at Milford Sound to those considering the drive. It’s less stressful that way, and you enjoy the sunrise and sunset views from the sound as Mr Sutherland did more than a century ago.
Briefing
Our tour started at noon from Wanaka airport.
Given the week-long bad weather conditions, we had to check back with the operator the night before to confirm that the tour was as scheduled.
The operator took our weights and organised us for our flight.
Each plane could fit six passengers and one pilot. We were grouped with a family of four. In total, 12 of us were heading to the sound.
The Flight
No words could express how the 15 minutes or so of a flight from Wanaka to Milford Sound is!
It’s best to check out my timelapse in the video (at the end)!
We flew over River Clutha, Lake Wanaka and the snow-capped Southern Alps in Mt Aspiring National Park.
Heading to the Cruise
A shuttle ferried us from the airport to the dock once we had landed at the airport.
We were issued a ticket to the cruise and told to assemble at the pier where one of the smallest cruise ships was docked.
Back in 2020, we could still see big cruises. These have mostly been phased out and are replaced with smaller ships. I find small ships more intimate since the guide and passenger ratio is smaller.
On Milford Sound
Complimentary tea and coffee were provided during the cruise.
We didn’t have to worry about missing any sights in the lounge room when the walls were made of glass. Most passengers chose to hover outside, on the upper deck, at the bow or the stern to soak in the sights and feel the wind.
As with all Milford Sound cruises, there is a fixed itinerary to follow.
Our cruise travelled in a clockwise direction, first by the right side of the sound, turning as it neared the Tasman Sea, and then heading back to the pier via the left side of the sound.
Most of the interesting parts of our 2-hour tour were found on the left side of the sound, so keep a lookout for that stretch. We saw penguins, dolphins having fun, and lounging fur seals.
I even had the chance to get myself sprayed by the stunning Stirling Falls, one of the highlight waterfalls in Milford Sound.
Returning
But alas, it was time to head back to shore. Two hours feel short when you’re having fun!
We flew back to Wanaka once more, and I took the opportunity to scan the terrain again for anything I might have missed. 15 mins is too short too!
Overnight Cruise on Milford Sound
You could extend your trip to Milford Sound with an overnight cruise.
An overnight cruise includes activities such as kayaking, swimming, and catching the sunset, sunrise and New Zealand’s famous inky night sky.
I bet the night sky must be so dark in Milford Sound since it’s far from light pollution. You could see the Milky Way! And if you’re lucky, the Aurora Australis!
However, if you were to ask me, I’d choose to do the overnight cruise at Doubtful Sound instead (which is what I did, since I have limited money and time 😆). Doubtful Sound is 10 times bigger and three times longer than Milford Sound. It will be pricier, but the experience is worth the price tag!
Conclusion/ Rambles
Exploring the Milford Sound on a cruise brings us closer to the beauty of the sound.
Yet I cannot find justification for past travellers’ recount of the sound being the 8th Wonder of the World. I’d blame it on the short time spent on the cruise and the number of cruise ships on the sound.
But I wholeheartedly agree that the Milford Track is stellar and can be a wonder of the world! Digression, but someone in the 1800s claimed an 8th Wonder of the World in Rotorua until a dreadful volcanic eruption blew the wonder away.
In retrospect, my Doubtful Sound experience was so much better. It’s quieter, and we spent a longer time exploring its many arms and inlets. Most importantly, we were the only cruise ship in the sound during my trip!
I find the flight to Milford Sound the most memorable part of my trip. Maybe you’d blame the flight that has set too high a bar for the cruise.
Since I have never travelled on Milford Road, tell me how it went if you take the other route!
Additional Notes
- Book early. Especially if you have a timing in mind.
- Pack your lunch and bring snacks.
- Visit in winter or late spring. For snow-capped peaks.
- Choose the first or last cruise. Less crowd. Be the first or the last.
- Wear grippy shoes. Floors can be wet after water activities.
Video
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