Fiordland and Milford Sound
A black fjord beneath 1,200 m walls, waterfalls born with the rain and a road that rivals the destination: Milford Sound is the long-awaited climax that still exceeds expectation.
Suggested stay — 2 nights (Te Anau or the Milford Road DOC campsites)
The Milford road (SH94) is the country's finest, and the country sets the bar high: 118 km from Te Anau through mirror lakes, glacial valleys with vertical walls, the meadows of the Eglinton Valley and the Homer Tunnel, hand-drilled through granite and guarded by keas — the alpine parrots with a taste for rubber seals. At the end, Piopiotahi/Milford Sound: Mitre Peak rising 1,683 m straight out of the black water, dusky dolphins and fur seals as the cruises' welcoming committee.
Here, rain is not a failure: with seven metres of water a year, a wet Fiordland covers itself in hundreds of ephemeral waterfalls that simply don't exist in fine weather — many consider the fjord in a downpour its superior version. The classic cruise lasts two hours; kayaking at water level, departing from Milford itself, delivers the true scale of the walls. Base yourself in Te Anau, or spend the night at the DOC campsites along the road to reach the fjord before the buses.
Don't miss
- The SH94 itself: Mirror Lakes, the Eglinton Valley, The Chasm — leave early and stop everywhere
- The fjord cruise (2 h), in sunshine or — better — under driving rain
- Kayaking Milford Sound at first light, before the boat traffic
- The Homer Tunnel keas, to be admired without EVER feeding them or leaving the van open
Our tips on the ground
- Fill up in Te Anau: there is NO petrol station on the 118 km of the Milford Road, and you return the same way.
- Aim for cruises before 10 am or after 3 pm: in between, the Queenstown buses unload their crowds — sleeping on the Milford road (Cascade Creek DOC campsites) puts you two hours ahead of everyone.
- From May to October, chains must be carried and the road sometimes closes for avalanche risk: check the NZTA website every morning before committing.
Our flagship guide — €29
Guide available“New Zealand on Your Own”, the complete edition, is out
10 chapters: day-by-day itineraries, driving and transport, a costed budget and checklists — the same method as our Namibia guide.
The guide is currently written in French — an English edition is in the works.
Before you go
Readers' questions about Fiordland and Milford Sound
Milford Sound or Doubtful Sound?
Milford for van access and instant spectacle; Doubtful for solitude — three times larger, reachable only on an organised excursion from Manapouri (boat, bus over the pass, boat again), and therefore near-deserted. With a single day, Milford; with a bigger budget and one more night, the overnight cruise on Doubtful is a memory in another category.
What if it rains on the planned day?
Go anyway: rain is Fiordland's normal condition (200 days a year) and it triggers hundreds of waterfalls down the walls, with clinging mists worthy of an ink painting. The only real reason to give up: the road closed by the NZTA (avalanches, slips). The sandflies, for their part, never give up — repellent is compulsory the moment the van stops.