We are still here after yet another superb day, despite the
weather forecasts. Over breakfast we watched cloud creep around the top of the
mountain, sure it was the first of the bad weather, but it drifted off and left
a mostly clear sky. The day is not yet done; perhaps the rain will arrive
tonight but for now we are just thrilled to have such perfect weather in which
to travel and appreciate the splendour all about us.
I wrote of the blond woolly-woofter we encountered on the
mountain top yesterday and of the verbose Austrian athletic tramper; after dark
the third young women to touch our solitude arrived at our door. A China girl, or should I say a young
Chinese women, well dressed and with, as you expect of such ethnic origin,
beautiful manners, came to ask if we could help her. She was unable to make a
call and her phone was completely flat. We explained that there was absolutely
no telephone reception north of Te Anau along this road, but plugged it into to
our 12 volt system, suggesting she call back in half an hour. She and her
travelling companion were to leave this morning at 7 am or earlier and it was imperative
that they make contact with a certain person as soon as possible. She returned
just short of an hour, by which time I would normally have been tucked up on
bed, however the charge had only reached 53%, although this should have allowed
a call once they reached the outskirts of Te Anau. She was most appreciative
and we learned the reason her English was so good was that she had spent a
couple of years in Los Angeles with her grandmother.
It had been a rather strange day, one way or another.
By the time we discovered the weather was better than
expected, our China girl had left in her red car, and she and the other young
women were but memories. We found a late arrival had set their tent up in front
of our motorhome so had to do a little manoeuvring to exit our personal little
camp, and wondered whether we should put a “Reserved” sign on it, although of
course this is just not done, and we were not absolutely sure that we would be
back here.
We headed off back past Lake Gunn, Lake Fergus, The Divide
and then down into the Hollyford Valley turning upriver toward Milford. The
road following the river was breathtakingly beautiful, a fact that alarmed me
because I could not remember it being so much so from the last time we came. We
slowed near Monkey Creek, but there were already a couple of tour busses and
several cars there so we decided to call on our way back. This turned out to be
a bad call; the dozens of keas who were gathered about the tourists were
obviously on their one shift, the morning shift. (The journey notes explain
that Monkey Creek is an excellent spot to see whio or blue duck. Certainly the creek is most picturesque and we
looked forward to calling on our return.)
From here the road climbs to the headwaters of the Hollyford,
to an altitude of 945 metres where the amazing Homer Tunnel passes through the
mountain, a truly amazing engineering feat, along with those many others I have
similarly reported.
In 1889 mountaineer and explorer W H Homer discovered the
Homer Saddle and thought it feasible to drive a tunnel through to connect the
Upper Hollyford and Cleddau Valleys, and form a route from Lake Wakatipu to
Milford Sound. Twelve months later in 1890, the Public Works Department
surveyed a possible link between Lake Wakatipu and Milford Sound, concluding
with Homer that a tunnel should be driven through.
It was not until the depression years of the 1930s that a
start was made on the Milford Road, not from Lake Wakatipu, but from Te Anau,
due in part to thirty kilometres of the road having been formed, by hand, from
Te Anau to Te Anau Downs during 1929.
In 1935 work began on the tunnel and, although finally
completed in 1952, enlargement work and rock bolting of unstable sections in
the tunnel roof delayed the opening until 1954. The construction period, which
spanned nearly twenty years, was halted for two periods of six months due to
weather conditions, and for nine years between 1942 and 1951 due to World War
II.
The tunnel is 1,207 metres long and was driven from one end
only through rugged mountain country, with tunnel portals sited on rock faces
at the head of glaciated valleys. Although the rock inside the tunnel was sound
and extremely hard, water streamed in through faults. The pre-war tunnelling
work used 100 kg of explosives per 25 cm of headings, and only two sections,
one at each portal, were lined. As well as the on-going maintenance to
stabilise rock and divert the water which flows in through the roof of the
tunnel, in 1996 two sections of tunnel, 100 metres from either end, were
widened to provide passing bays.
When the construction work was completed, the tunnel was
closed during the winter months. By the 1971s local fishing and tourism groups
successfully lobbied for the road to remain open all year round. During the early 1980s the seriousness of the
avalanche hazard had been identified, with many international experts
travelling to the area to assess the risk and establish safety procedures.
However it was not until the death of the road maintenance supervisor, “Pop”
Andrews, from a massive avalanche in September 1983, that a programme was
established to manage the avalanche hazard on the road. Today a sophisticated
avalanche programme enables the road to remain open with optimum safety to road
workers and users alike.
So the road through the tunnel is one way, and there is an
efficient lighting system that allows traffic to travel through unhindered by
oncoming traffic, a sign at the edge of the tunnel suggesting that there can be
delays up to twenty minutes at peak traffic time. More welcoming is the
electronic readout that tells you how many minutes and seconds until the lights
will change to green and allow one to proceed. This means you can pop out of
your vehicle and take photos and still be back in time to not inconvenience the
traffic behind you.
This morning our wait was short and we entered the dark
descent quickly. Chris remarked on entry that he did not like this tunnel, I
certainly did not, and we both agreed that the dark rock just sucks the light
of vehicle headlights out and one has the same hideous sensation as wandering
through a reopened mining tunnel. Worse still, heading west, the road seems to
drop rather drastically and the light at the end of the tunnel is not visible
at all until very near the exit.
Emerging into the bright sunlight, the stark sheer walls of
the mountains appear through the watery windscreen and below the road zigzags
steeply down toward sea-level. It is a safe road, but hardly one to delight in
unless the road should be closed for a one-way rally.
The Cleddau River rises in the gully of the descent, here
just a serious of modest waterfalls, soon a torrent, then as beautiful as so
many of the rocky rivers of this region. We pulled into the car park to access
the short walk to the Chasm, an incredibly powerful waterfall that has carved
its way through the hard rock of Fiordland. We arrived moments before the two
busloads previously engaged with the attentions of the keas and were back long
enough to still hear the chorus of birdlife in the gully above the Cleddau.
Here too in the car park were the remains of a car wreck. We wondered at the
likelihood of survival a crash that could have caused such a tangle, and when
it happened. Later we saw a recovery vehicle heading in from Te Anau and
guessed it was coming to take the mangled mess out for insurance assessment.
Soon we arrived at Milford, which is really very little but
a space at the bottom of the valley and end of the Sound to house the tour
office on the cruise wharf very recently upgraded. The Milford Sound Fresh
Water Basin Harbour Redevelopment was officially opened in May 2013, so it
should have been no surprise to us that little looked familiar.
Milford Village is home to about two hundred folk, is one of
the wettest places on earth. The average annual rainfall is 6.7 metres and
falls over 250 mm on a single day are not uncommon. While Milford experiences
rain on about 200 days of the year, most falls during the spring.
We were directed by a fluoro jacketed individual to a far
car park, advised the first was already full. We had read in our NZMCA
directory that there was a dump facility here and did find it in the car park,
because there were only regular car park spaces marked here and there were no “No
Parking” signs, it is a facility that is as good as useless. We double parked
and carried the toilet cassette across to the dump point, but had we wanted to
empty our grey water, we would have been in trouble. It is a “Clayton’s” dump,
and the Southland Council should be ashamed of themselves. If a dump is there
to for use, let there be space for motorhomes to park and utilise the facility.
Needless to say we were unimpressed. We then drove around the car park twice
before finding a recently vacated double space for us to fit in. Again there
should be specially set aside spaces for large motorhomes; there are plenty on
the road and 99% of them driven by hiring tourists; again, not impressed. 
We joined the non-English speaking throngs to walk around to
the terminal, enjoying the views across the bay and up to Mitre Peak, the
iconic attraction of Milford Sound. This Peak is one of many all about, but
seems to stand alone and therefore is so much more impressive, reaching 1,692
metres ASL. From the wharf we watched cruise boats loading, unloading, heading
out and arriving; so much busy-ness and hopefully so many tourist dollars pouring
into the economy.
We wandered out to the end of the breakwater, at the end of
which we found a memorial to a Japanese family who had all drowned not too far
away, from an air accident in December 1989, then walked back to the car park
and then headed up the Lookout Track, a ten minute walk up stairs into the bush
from where one has even better views across to Mitre Peak.
Almost claustrophobic from the tourist crowds, we headed
away from the centre to the boat ramp and industrial area from where the kayak
tours operate. Here we found ourselves a space among the montbretias and other
colourful weeds, and enjoyed our lunch in relative peace.
Heading away from Milford, we stopped at the Tutoko
Suspension Bridge, built in 1940 to cross the river of the same name. It was
this that completed the road into Milford Sound. It is the one original bridge
that has been kept for historical purposes; a more sturdy bridge carries the
traffic of today. Chris was not willing to get out of the vehicle, aware that
the road is busy with crazy tourists and not parked far enough off the road; I
stood on the old bridge and gazed at the spectacular mountains rising straight
up and the beautiful river rushing over the huge rocks.
We proceeded on, up the very steep ascent to the west end of
the Homer Tunnel; Chris reminded me of how much our old motorhome had struggled
with the road and applauded the performance of the new. However we had not
forgotten how hot the brakes had smelled when we arrived in Milford today; we
missed the air brakes of the Mitsubishi Canter.
We pulled off the road at the other end of the tunnel and
wandered across to the ruins of the workshops, a few concrete foundations left
from the tunnel’s construction days. There was a cold wind blasting up the
valley and we were soon driven back inside. On we went until we arrived at
Monkey Creek, looking forward to getting up close and personal with the keas.
Alas there were two more busloads of tourists; over seventy Asians in bright
clothing and with brighter smiles, all busy taking photos of each other or
themselves, or collecting water from the stream they must have been told was
pure as could be, but not a whio or kea
in sight. We waited until they all left, but the damage was done; the birdlife
had gone for the day, or at least for the next shift.
We continued on down the Hollyford River, the road not
really offering viewing spots until we started the ascent back to the Divide.
Here is “Pop’s” Lookout, named for the road maintenance supervisor whose death
sparked a change in avalanche management. From here one has views further down
the Hollyford Valley, on down beyond road end where the 56 kilometres Hollyford
Track takes the tramper on out to the Tasman Sea after four days hard graft.
From here it was about ten kilometres back to camp, where we
parked up in our regular spot yet again and then set off for a wander toward
the Eglington River through the beech forest and down to the convergence of
that and the Cascade Creek, causing great flocks of finches to rise up out of
the low growing scrub. This turned out to be a very sad exercise; we discovered
the Eglington is just full of didymo or
more colloquially, “rock snot”. Obviously careless fishermen have not been
diligent in washing their equipment and have brought it into this river system
from another. For now there is no solution to the biological disaster, and we
were appalled to see that this beautiful river is just ruined. On that tragic
note, we returned to our camp and settled in for the afternoon.
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