Red Boat Cruises At Milford Sound

A Red Boats trip on Milford Sound gives a true sense of the majesty of the incomparable scenery.

Experiencing Milford Sound You will be awed by the view however you arrive – by car, by bus, by plane or on foot.

Mitre Peak dominates the scene. Most of us have seen Mitre Peak numerous times on stamps, on calendars, on
postcards or even on biscuit tins.

Mitre Peak Click here for a larger version

We feel as though we know it, but for a full appreciation of Mitre Peak I recommend taking a cruise and finding yourself alongside its sheer face.
To read that its height is 1,695m (5,560 ft) is impressive, but I wasn’t really able to comprehend what that meant until we cruised along beside it.

Be prepared. Take raincoats and insect repellent. However you travel remember to take a waterproof coat, hat and footwear. Milford has a rainfall of 7-9 metres a year. The record falls are 50cm (20
inches) in 24 hours and 19cm (7.5 inches) in four hours.

We have travelled to Milford in fine and wet weather and can assure you that if the weather is wet the extra waterfalls cascading down mountain slopes all around you are an awesome replacement for the loss of views of
the tops of the moutains.

The sandflies can be a nuisance if you aren’t prepared, so bring your repellent. I don’t recommend wearing sandals or thongs without socks as they give you little protection from sandfly bites. Most people have little trouble from their bites, and they are a small price to pay for the
wonders of Milford.

First stop – the Red Boat booking office Park your car in the parking area. Do remember that waterproof coat and hat as it may be raining as you walk to the Milford Visitor Centre to book
your place on a cruise. We went with the Red Boats and found the service
excellent. Make sure that the cruise you choose includes a stop at the Milford Deep Underwater Observatory.

There are eight Red Boat trips a day departing from the wharf in Freshwater
Bay in the summer schedule (October to April) and three a day in winter. You can choose a cruise lasting 1 hour 45 minutes, or a 2 hour 30 minute cruise which includes a visit to the Underwater Observatory, or a three hour trip which not only visits the Observatory but also takes you out into
the Tasman Sea and lets you see a remote part of the west coast. I strongly recommend that you choose the three hour trip which under current
timetabling leaves at 12.25 p.m. However, if you take the 3 p.m. trip you
may be dropped off at the Underwater Observatory and returned to Freshwater
Basin by water taxi.

Services on board Boarding the Red Boat is easy even for the least confident passenger. The
twin-hulled catamaran, 24 metres (75 feet) long, is stable and provides comfortable cruising.

Once on board you will find that the friendly crew is ready to make your trip enjoyable and educational. There is a full commentary in English but
you will also be supplied with an information sheet with a map and notes on
the features seen on the trip. This is available in English, Japanese, Chinese and Korean.

You will need an ample supply of film for your camera, so Red Boats have films available for purchase.

There is a licensed bar and a full buffet lunch is offered on some midday
cruises. The menu includes six types of salads, hot vegetables, beef curry, pork, chicken drumsticks, fish, rice, noodles, and Japanese spring
rolls.

Soft drinks, snacks and confectionery may be purchased at any time.

Out into Milford Sound Milford Sound is actually a large fiord. At its widest part it is 2 kilometres (1.25 miles) across and the distance from the wharf to the open
sea is 7.25 nautical miles. The tide rises and falls by 2.4m (94.5 inches)
and the high tide mark is visible on the side of Mitre Peak.

In the mornings the breeze blows off the mountains, and in the afternoons
it blows in from the sea, which caused trouble for the sailing ships.

The Bowen Falls

The Lady Bowen Falls Click here for a larger version

As the boat glides away from the wharf the skipper’s voice can be heard welcoming passengers and pointing out the first feature on the starboard side – the Bowen Falls, (actually named the Lady Bowen Falls). These fall 160 metres (526 ft) from a hanging valley. A hanging valley
is one which has been formed by a glacier which joined the main glacier in
what is now the fiord. When the branch glacier thawed and the level of the
main glacier lowered, the side valley remained open high above the fiord.

Below the falls is Cemetery Point, so called because the debris from
the falls resembles the mounds of graves. There are also three graves of
sealers or whalers from the earliest years of European visitors to Milford.
You can take a short walk for a closer view of the Bowen Falls and Cemetery
Point after your cruise.

On the port side you can see Sinbad Gully, another hanging valley, between
Mt Phillips on the left and Mitre Peak on the right. It drains the northern side of Llawrenny Peaks at the head of the valley and the southern
faces of Mitre Peak.

Mitre Peak 1695m (5560 ft) As we approach the side of Mitre Peak the skipper tells us that the water
below us is 304m (1000 ft) deep and visiting cruise ships like the QE2 have
been unable to drop anchor because of the depth of the water. The peak towers about a mile above us, one of the highest mountains in the world to
rise steeply straight from the water.

Approaching Mitre Peak Click here for a larger version

The dominant forest on the peak is silver beech with southern rata growing
on very steep faces. Above the bushline are snowgrass and the mountain buttercup, gentian and Celmisia flowering in season. On the northern sides of the peak there is a covering of moss and the vegetation is rooted
in this. Landslides are frequent and it is possible to view the regrowth
in various stages.

The southern rata can be seen in flower in summer from before Christmas for
about a month. At sea level the temperatures are warmer so the rata flowers there first and as summer advances the flowers come out up the side of the mountain.

Copper Point Further along the side of Mitre Peak you come to Copper point, so called because of the high deposits at this point. Minerals are abundant around
the Sound – copper, iron, silver, zinc, gold and garnet – and the rocks are
richly coloured. The copper produces green streaks. There are also some
streaks of gold coloured quartz which is naturally white but is stained gold by tannin from the trees above.

Gold was last taken out of the area in the 1930s. Fiordland was reserved
as a National Park in 1904, and an area of 1,072,667 acres was declared a
national park in 1952 – the largest in New Zealand.

Windy Point Here gusts of wind have been recorded in excess of 90 knots. Only very high wind causes the cancellation of Red Boat cruises and that happens only
once or twice a year.

Fairy Falls Here the skipper will pull in close to the shore to let passengers feel the
spray from the falls.

St Anne’s Point Further out towards the open sea at St Anne’s Point is the automatic lighthouse for Milford Sound. It can be seen from 22 km (14 miles) out to
sea. The lighthouse is checked annually. It is the third to be built on
the site. The first two were knocked over by huge waves, one as a result
of a storm on the Australian coast.

Anita Bay This bay inside St Anne’s Point provides shelter from southwest conditions.
The Maori came here for greenstone which they carved for weapons and ornaments. The type of greenstone (jade) found here is bowenite (Maori tangiwai ), not as strong or as hard as nephrite (Maori pounamu ). In 1842
there was an attempt to quarry bowenite in the hills above the bay but this
failed. Early in the twentieth century some stone was quarried and made into ornaments in Dunedin. Now that the area is part of a National Park such enterprises are no longer permitted.

Out in the open sea Here there is less wind than inside the Sound, but there are few beaches along the rugged sheer coastline. Captain Cook is believed to have sailed
six miles from the coast in March 1770 and did not see Milford Sound. In
1773 he went to Dusky Sound.
and spent time there to refresh his crew, but again he did not discover Milford Sound.

The Stirling Falls The water falls 146m (479 ft) – higher than a 45 storey building. This
waterfall is one of the permanent falls in the fiord. They look even more
dramatic after very heavy rain, but when we last viewed them in fine weather they looked very impressive. Here again the skipper will pull in
close.

Seal Point

We saw Southern Fur Seals basking in the sunshine. Seals were hunted by sealers in the sounds of Fiordland from 1792. A party
of men would be put ashore and left for a year after which the ship hopefully came back and picked them up – which didn’t always happen. The
seals were slaughtered so indiscriminately that after about half a century
the trade ceased. Culling of seals continued until 1946. The New Zealand
fur seal is now totally protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act
1978.

The seals are in Milford Sound all the year. There is a sizable colony four or five miles up the sea coast. Seal Point is a good vantage point for seeing the seals as it is one of the few places in the Sound where they
can lie on the rocks.

Penguins We saw penguins swimming in the water near the boat and on the shore. Both the Fiordland crested penguins and little blue penguins are found in
Fiordland National Park.

Harrison Cove As the only natural anchorage in the Sound is at Harrison Cove a township
developed there to supply the boats with extras during the sealing years in
the eighteenth century. Crews could fill up their supply of fresh water
from the river and make temporary repairs.

The shelter provided was one reason for choosing this cove as the location
for the Milford Sound Underwater Observatory.

After a unique experience viewing underwater life we boarded our Red Boat
once again and returned to the wharf at the Milford Visitor Centre, with a
further look at the Bowen Falls as we approached the wharf.

Our cruise was a wonderful experience worth including on any itinerary. We can hardly wait until we can have this experience again.