Piopiotahi / Milford Sound Misnamed
If you look at where Stirling Falls comes from - above it, you'll see that deep U-shaped valley. That's what we call a ‘hanging valley’. This was carved out by one of the smaller glaciers in the area, before it was cut off in its tracks by a much larger glacier here in the main body of the fiord - a bit like a small stream running into a larger river. Piopiotahi / Milford Sound was carved out by five major glaciers over the last three million years. What that means is Piopiotahi / Milford Sound is not actually a sound and has been misnamed. It should be called Milford Fiord. That's because a sound is carved out by the cutting action of running water, for example a river, and has shallow V shaped valley floors. The only true sounds in New Zealand are the Marlborough Sounds at the top of the South Island. What we have here though, is a true fiord, which means we've been carved out by glacial ice, and we have steep sides and low U-shaped valleys. Early settlers didn't know that at the time, and the word fiord wasn't part of the English Dictionary. It was a Norwegian word. So, they called this place a sound, along with the 13 sounds to the south of us. However, they were mistaken as they are true fiords. Once they realised their mistake, instead of changing the names, they just called the entire region Fiordland, to add to the confusion.
Mining At Piopiotahi / Milford Sound
If you look up at the back of that hanging valley just coming into view, you'll see that sharp triangular shaped peak, and that's what we call a glacial horn. That was carved right to the top by ice and glaciers. It gives you an idea of how high they once were! These glaciers were moving out towards the Tasman Sea at about seven metres a day. These glaciers stripped away all the soft sedimentary rocks such as the limestones and sandstones, and left behind incredibly hard, steep sea cliffs. They're made-up of granite, banded gneiss, and metamorphic rock. We had a few gold miners come into Piopiotahi / Milford Sound in the late 1800s to try and make their fame and fortune in mining. However, they soon discovered how hard these sea cliffs were, and they were far too tough to chip away at with their pickaxes especially from the vessels. Those gold miners only spent 100 days in here before they gave up and left this place untouched.Nowadays we have UNESCO World Heritage Status. We are in Fiordland National Park, New Zealand's largest National Park, at 1.2 million hectares, and we gained UNESCO World Heritage status in 1986. Everything you see now is completely protected and can't be touched
Tree Avalanche
We are travelling through a beach forest at the moment, and off to the left you can see red, silver and mountain beech trees, as well as some of our native podocarps such as matai, rimu, totora, kahikatea, miro and southern rata, to name a few. It’s quite amazing that forest can grow here. There's no topsoil in these mountains as they're simply too sheer and steep to retain it. So in order for the forest to grow, it needs a layer of moss and lichen. The moss retains moisture, and it acts like topsoil and creates a seed bed for the forest to germinate. Once those trees grow roots, they spread out across the cliff face, holding on to small cracks in the rock and other trees. They say that only 10% of the roots are actually holding onto the mountain, while the other 90% intertwine their roots into each other. That all sounds pretty good until one of these trees decides to let go. When this happens, it will rip everything out below it, creating what we call a ‘tree avalanche’ and just over to the left, you can see those three large vertical scars running up through the forest. That's the result of these tree avalanches. One tree let's go at the top and it rips everything out like a big zip. They are quite common here in Milford and they say it could take one of these tree avalanches over 100 years to regenerate back into a full forest canopy.
Rainfall at Piopiotahi / Milford Sound
Piopiotahi / Milford Sound is part of a cool temperate rainforest. On average here in Milford, we get more rainfall than the Amazon rainforest, about 8 metres a year, falling over 250 calendar days on average. The highest recorded rainfall we've had within a 24-hour period was 1.3 metres of rain, which makes us one of the wettest inhabited places on Earth at sea level. We get so much rainfall here in Milford that we're actually travelling on fresh water at the moment with salt water underneath. Don't be mistaken, we are still on the Tasman Sea, just within Piopiotahi / Milford Sound. But freshwater, being less dense, sits on top of the salt water and it doesn't mix until it gets out to the entrance. Depending on the frequency and volume of rainfall, we can have a layer of fresh water over 10 metres thick which creates quite a unique marine environment. You'll notice the colour of the water is quite dark. That's because the fresh water gets stained with tannins as it runs down through the forest. This stains the fresh water that dark colour like a natural set of tea leaves and blocks any sunlight from getting lower down into the salt water beneath. It's a unique phenomenon called deepwater emergence. We get a lot of deep-sea fish and coral here in Piopiotahi / Milford Sound that grow nice and shallow. A good example of that is black coal, which is normally found in 200 metres of water but here in Piopiotahi / Milford Sound it’s found at only 15 metres below the surface.
Bridal Veil Falls
The smaller waterfall over to our left, dropping in behind that grove trees is called the Bridal Veil falls. Not the most spectacular waterfall at 55 metres tall, but what is special about Bridal Veil Falls is where it comes from. As we come past, have a look back at the waterfall and above it, you'll see a large crack running up the side of the mountain. That large crack is actually an active fault line. It's called the Pembroke to Tutoko fault line. It's responsible for over one thousand Earth tremors a year. On average here in Piopiotahi / Milford Sound, we get one or two earthquakes a day. Yes, you heard that right! One or two earthquakes a day! Now, I haven't quite felt any yet, but that does give you something to think about as you're driving back through the Homer Tunnel.The reason we're so seismically active at Piopiotahi/ Milford is because we're very close to the Pacific Rim of Fire, the collision boundary between the Australasian and Pacific tectonic plates. They call it the Alpine Fault. It starts three km offshore from where we are now and tears up the South Island of New Zealand, creating the Southern Alps.They are predicting in the next 30 years a magnitude 9 earthquake on the Alpine Fault, and when that earthquake happens, these mountains are going to shift 4 metres sideways - hopefully on my days off!
The Roaring 40s
In the next couple of minutes, you may start to feel a change in the motion of the vessel as we approach the entrance of Piopiotahi / Milford Sound into the open Tasman Sea. We've been on the Tasman Sea this whole time, but out here it is the vast expanse of the roaring 40s, so just be mindful that the vessel may move around a little bit more. If you are a bit unsteady on your feet, it may just pay to hold on to a handrail.Just coming into view ahead of us to the right now is the entrance to Piopiotahi / Milford Sound and the Wild West Coast. That far point you can see out ahead of us is called St. Anne's Point. If we hung a left around Saint Anne's Point and continued south, we would soon discover 13 other fiords before we hit the southwest corner of New Zealand, Puysegur Point and the Great Southern Ocean. If we were to continue West from Saint Anne's point, we wouldn't strike land for four and a half thousand nautical miles. We'd go underneath Australia and South Africa, halfway around the world to the southern shores of South America. That's because we're 44° south part of the roaring 40s and it’s not uncommon to see a six metre swell out here on the Tasman Sea. About three times a year, we get what's known as a phenomenal high sea, which is swell in excess of 12 metres.If we were to continue northwest from Saint Anne's Point, however, for about four days at the speed roughly 1000 nautical miles, we'd soon discover that vast, magnificent continent with the rock in the middle, called Australia. We’re not quite going to make that journey over to Australia today. We certainly have enough fuel and water on board, but I left my toothbrush at home, so we'll spin around shortly and head back in. After all, once you see one open sea, they do all look a bit the same.
Europeans discovering Piopiotahi / Milford Sound
The Tasman Sea was named after the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman. He never made it this far South and only got to the top of the South Island. The first European down here was Captain James Cook. He sailed past the entrance, twice, in 1770 and 1773 aboard ‘The Resolution’. Captain Cook never discovered Piopiotahi / Milford Sound as from a couple of miles offshore, it's completely hidden from view and so he sailed straight past and never knew this place existed. Piopiotahi / Milford Sound wasn't discovered by Europeans until 1823, when a Welsh sealing captain named John Grono discovered this place hunting fur seals along the coast and named it Milford Haven after his birthplace in Wales. It was later changed to Milford Sound in 1851 during the Acheron survey by Captain John Lord Stokes.
Tawaki / Fiordland Crested Penguin
Sometimes, if we're lucky, we can see the elusive Fiordland Crested Penguin, known in Māori as ‘tawaki’ along these beaches. They're very hard to spot. They're only about 40 centimetres tall when fully grown and they are white bellied with a black back and yellow bushy eyebrows. They're the third rarest Penguin in the world. They spend eight months of the year at sea. Their breeding season starts in August, so they'll come in to Piopiotahi / Milford Sound for four months to breed and raise their young, and then take off in about November and head down to the sub-Antarctic
Pounamu & Kai moana
Europeans discovered Piopiotahi / Milford Sound back in 1823, but early Māori discovered this place over 1000 years ago. They came down here for two reasons. The first was to collect a very rare stone known as tangiwai pounamu, or teardrop green stone. It’s the only type of bowenite you can find anywhere on Earth. It’s highly prized, and a very valuable stone, even by today's standards. It is all protected now. You need a special permit to collect the pounamu from the area, as it belongs to the local iwi Ngai Tahu or Kai Tahu.There is one special place where you can go and get yourself some greenstone pounamu jade, and that is the souvenir shop or the gift shop. Pounamu is known as "the gifted stone’’. This reflects the Māori cultural tradition that pounamu should be given as a gift carrying meaning and connection to the land, rather than purchasing for yourself, as it holds a life force (mauri) and prestige (mana).Early Māori also came down here to collect ‘kai moana’ or seafood. If you're into your fishing, there's great fishing within Milford and out here at the Tasman Sea. There's plenty of fish here in New Zealand – we call it ‘fush’. You’ll catch blue cod, gurnard, terakihi, grouper or hapuku, trumpeter, travelly, blue nose, southern bluefin tuna, kingfish, lots of paua and kina as well as crayfish. There's so much crayfish in Fiordland that we have a commercial crayfishing industry. There are 14 boats that work out of Piopiotahi / Milford Sound, fishing New Zealand crayfish or spiny red rock lobster. Over 1000 tonnes of live crayfish are exported off the Fiordland coast every year. It's a highly lucrative industry and they can fetch $150.00 per kilo on a good day. It is a live export. Those crayfish get tipped up out of their pots straight onto a helicopter where they’re flown to Queenstown, and they board a flash jet plane. Within 24 hours they can be halfway around the world, woken up in a nice hot bath, dressed up and ready for dinner at a fancy restaurant
Anita Bay and the Wild West Coast
This bay just coming into view off to our left is Anita Bay. This is where early Māori would collect their tangiwai pounamu. It's found all along the beaches out here. Those colourful boats on the water are some of the holding pots for the commercial crayfishing vessels.Shortly we are going to begin to spin the vessel back around now to head back into Milford. For those of you on the outside decks, you may start to feel an increase in wind speed as we face towards this offshore breeze so just hold on to your loose items. If you look up that coastline in the direction that we're travelling now, that far point ahead of us there is called Yates Point. If you continue North from Yates point around the corner, you discover Martins Bay, Big Bay, Jackson's head, and then Jackson's Bay, which is the southernmost point of the West Coast Rd. That's as far South as you can drive on the West Coast before you have to turn inland. It's not very far from us here, only about 50 nautical miles, but because there's no road directly along the coast, if you want to drive from Jacksons Bay to Piopiotahi / Milford Sound, it takes you about 9 1/2. Hours. You need to travel through Haas Pass, Lake Hāwea, Wānaka, Queenstown and Te Anau, and then into Piopiotahi / Milford Sound.
Dale Point
We've just come around Dale Point and now we've been greeted by the same view that Captain John Grono would have seen all those years ago when he first discovered Piopiotahi / Milford Sound. It’s one of our favourite views looking right down the fiord to Mount Kimberley and the Cascade Range. It’s a spectacular place for a photo
Palisades / Palisade Falls
Now that we are looking back down the fiord, out ahead of us you'll see that point of land that comes down and meets the water carved into the shape of a large rock step. If you look across the other side from it, there's another rock step over there and those are what we call Palisades. If you draw an imaginary line across the top between those two rock steps, you can see how they match up. That would have once been the valley floor, or the base of Piopiotahi / Milford Sound, before the next glacier broke through the middle, carving out a deeper path. We have five of these Palisades in total. There's three above the water and two below. Five Palisades indicates five separate glacial periods over the years, the earliest around 3 million years ago and finishing around 12,000 years ago. The larger waterfall ahead of us in the corner is rightfully known as Palisade Falls. It's our longest lasting rain dependent waterfall and sticks around about two weeks after the rainfall stops. It's more of a cascade than a waterfall though, and that's because it spends most of its time running down the side of the mountain, instead of falling off.
Seal Rock
Now that we are at the Palisades and the Palisade Falls, shortly we're going to have the chance to see a little bit of local wildlife. This rocky point in front of us is known as Seal Rock and no mystery as to what we can find here if we're lucky; some southern fur seals.Piopiotahi / Milford Sound was discovered because of these fur seals. They were hunted by Europeans for their fur which was used for items of clothing, hats, jackets, belts, and handbags. The blubber was refined into an oil which burned in streetlamps in Europe, and they would eat the meat. These seals were nearly haunted to extinction by Europeans in the early 1800s, before the government placed full protection on them and now their numbers have recovered.The seals that we get here in Milford are all juvenile males. They're teenage boys. We don't get fully grown seals or females within the fiord. It's because their colony is about three kilometres north of the entrance. The juvenile males get kicked out of their colonies by the much larger bull seals protecting their hareems of females, so they come down here to feed and grow. They normally stick around for two years where they can triple in size, and once they're big enough, they'll head back to their colony and fight the bull seals for some female partners.They're known in Māori as ‘kekeno’, which means ‘to look around’. It's quite often they'll set up on their front flippers and look around at all sorts of interesting angles, and so this is how they get their Māori name. So, in New Zealand fur seals are known in Māori as ‘kekeno’; in Piopiotahi / Milford Sound they are known as a ‘rock sausage’. They are the only animals we know that can make a rock look comfortable. For those of you wondering how the seals can get up on the large rocks - these are actually sea lions. Sea lions have external ears, and can rotate their rear flippers 180°, which gives them a very special ability. We call it ‘fur wheel drive’.They are semi nocturnal feeders. They spend most of their late evenings and early mornings hunting fish before they sleep throughout the day. They dive down to 200 metres deep and hold their breath for eight minutes.
Disappointment Falls
Now, because you guys have been the best group we've had so far today on this cruise, we're going to go and show your Piopiotahi / Milford Sound’s third permanent waterfall, which is just up in this corner in front of us now. You can't quite see it yet but it will be coming into view shortly.This is the only waterfall in the world that doubles in the heights twice a day, so you don't want to miss this one. We're not stopping for long, so you go and have your cameras ready on the left-hand side of the vessel. Can you see it? Don't look up - look down! It's the smallest waterfall in Piopiotahi / Milford Sound, and just one metre high at high tide, two metres high at low tide. Wow! It doubles in height twice a day with the tides. Make sure to take some photos as you won't see that in the brochures. It's called the Disappointment Falls!Just kidding! We are going to show you another waterfall shortly.
Stirling Falls
Now that we've got your attention, the next waterfall we're going to show you is Piopiotahi / Milford Sound's second highest permanent waterfall, Stirling Falls. Some consider this the highlight of the cruise, and we will be there very shortly. Stirling Falls is 155 metres tall, 550 feet and three times higher than Niagara Falls. Named after Commodore Stirling but Māori already gave it the beautiful name of Waimanu, which translates to ‘waterbird’ or ‘spray on the water’.Stirling Falls / Waimanu is fed by the Pembroke Glacier, which is freshly melted for you today. Because it is a glacially fed waterfall, the water coming out of it is some of the purest in the world and thousands of years old. And guess what? It comes with a legend. They say if you get blessed by the spray of Waimanu there is a high likelihood that you will wake up tomorrow looking and feeling ten years younger. We can confirm this is true. If you don't believe us, just have a look at the crew. We're all over 70 years old so this does work!This waterfall does come with a warning. Latest information tells us that waterfalls are wet, so while you may wake up looking and feeling ten years younger, just bear in mind your sensitive electronic devices may not wake up at all. Our best advice is to get yourselves outside and make the most of Milford’s only spa treatment; ‘The glacial facial’ where wrinkles wash away. We do just have to let you know that if you're staying inside, you are going to wake up looking ten years older tomorrow!
Milford Overhang
Well for those of you that were lucky enough to be blessed by the spray of Waimanu, congratulations! You’re already starting to look nice and beautiful; refreshed and rejuvenated!For those of you still outside, have a look up to the left. We're passing beneath the Milford Overhang, which is 700 metres high; twice as high as the Empire State Building. The top of the mountain continues 600 metres above the overhang to the top of Mount Kimberley, or the Lion Mountain. They say if you were to jump off the overhang, you'd freefall for about 12 seconds before gently caressing the water at terminal velocity. In the past, the used to base jump off that overhang believe it or not. Daredevils would jump off with a parachute, fly down to the water and get picked up by a vessel. Pretty keen individuals! They base jumped off there until about ten years ago. As part of a Red Bull advert, one of the athletes jumped off and although her parachute opened, she was blown into the cliff face on her way down. Miraculously she survived and only broke a couple of bones, roughly 200, but they banned base jumping here after that.
Harrison’s Cove
Just coming into view ahead of us to the left is Harrisons Cove. Harrisons Cove was named after John Harrison, who invented a device called a ship’s chronometer, a very important piece of equipment which allowed mariners to calculate their longitude offshore. Harrison's Cove is one of the only places within Milford where we can anchor a vessel as it comes up to 30 metres deep. The average depth around the rest of the fiord is 2 to 300 metres deep, which is far too deep to drop a hook.You may see that small yellow float out there in Harrison's Cove. That's a mooring for the overnight vessels. They'll come in here to Milford and tie up to that mooring, stay the night before they head back to the harbour the next day.As we come past this point on our left in the next minute or so, you may see a man-made structure come into view, which is what remains of the underwater observatory. Unfortunately, that observatory sustained a large amount of damage in a storm in 2024, which sank the reception building and the wharf so it's in a state of disrepair. They are going to rebuild it, but they say it may take a few years
Mount Pembroke
If you look out to the left, up at the back of the valley is the highest mountain overlooking Milford; Mount Pembroke. Standing at 2020 metres tall, Mount Pembroke is also home to the Pembroke Glacier, which is the last glacier overlooking Milford and is responsible for feeding Stirling Falls. You're very lucky to see that waterfall today because they estimate the glacier only has about 25 years of life left in it, and once it's gone, Stirling Falls will become a rain dependent waterfall
Cascade Range
The large mountain range ahead of us is called the Cascade Range. It got its name as on a wet day at Piopiotahi / Milford Sound, it comes to life with hundreds of cascading waterfalls. Cascade Range is also known by the pilots in Milford as ‘the elevator’. When we get our traditional breeze coming in from the Tasman Sea, it hits the Cascade Range and gets pushed upwards. The pilots take off out of Milford, fly as close as they can to that mountain range, and they use the extra lift to get their planes up and over the mountains nice and quickly.
Milford Village
Directly ahead of us on that flat piece of land is where the Milford Airport is situated. On a busy summer’s day, we can get more than 250 flights in and out of that airport, which makes it New Zealand's busiest domestic airport on these days. Just behind the runway is our staff village, where all Piopiotahi / Milford Sound staff live and work full time; about 150 over winter and roughly 300 over summer between the companies. There's no private housing here in Milford. You must work here to live here. It does mean that we've got the best unemployment rate in the country - a big zero!
Sheerdown Range & Cleddau Valley
Just above that flat bit of land directly ahead of us is the Sheerdown range, which separates the two valleys that come down into the head of Piopiotahi / Milford Sound.The valley off to the left of the Sheerdown range is the Cleddau Valley, which is home to the Milford Road. It takes you up through the Homer Tunnel on your way out to Te Anau. The valley that disappears down to the right of the Sheerdown range is the Arthur Valley, which is home to the world-famous Milford walking track, a four day three night track departing from the top end of Lake Te Anau over the McKinnon Pass down here into Piopiotahi / Milford Sound. This is classed as one of the finest walks on Earth. You do need a water taxi from both ends. About halfway along the Milford track, you'll discover New Zealand's highest waterfall, Sutherland Falls, which is 580 metres tall. You can't see that waterfall from here and you will have to go walking to find it.
Just coming into view ahead of us is the highest permanent waterfall in Milford, the Bowen Falls, standing at 165 metres tall. That makes it ten metres higher than Stirling falls. Unfortunately, though, we can't get you as close to this one as Mother Nature put a shoreline in the way and they don't like it when I run the boat up on the rocks.Not only does Bowen Falls make a stunning entrance and exit to the harbour, it's also very important to those of us that live in Piopiotahi / Milford Sound. At the top of the waterfall, we divert a small amount of water through a pipeline which runs down to the back of the Visitor Terminal, and it goes through a hydroelectric generator which powers the entire Milford village. We are completely off grid and from the generator we pass the water through a couple of filters and straight into our taps, providing the entire village and the vessels with fresh, clean, and filtered drinking water. If you've had a tea, coffee, hot chocolate, or glass of water on the boat today, you've drank water directly from Bowen Falls and some of the purest in the world.This waterfall was named by the 5th Governor General of New Zealand, George Bowen, who named it after his wife, Lady Elizabeth Diamantina Bowen. It's known to Māori as ‘Hine Te Awa’, which means ‘Lady of the River’.Unfortunately, seeing all of this, it does mean a close conclusion to our journey. As we approach the harbour entrance folks, this will be your last opportunity to take some photos with Bowen Falls before collecting all your possessions and disembarking at the terminal building.
On behalf of Pure Milford and the crew to thank you for spending your busy holiday schedule with us. It has been an absolute pleasure showing you around our backyard. We certainly hope you enjoyed yourselves as much as we enjoyed showing it to you. We trust you made some amazing memories, and we'd like to wish you safe and happy travels wherever they may take you from here.On behalf of the crew, we would all like to say mā te wā, see you later, ka kite anō, and thanks for joining us. Kia Ora
