Stuck in Milford Sound

As the title foreshadows my break switched gears a bit after finishing the Kepler. I checked the weather forecast in Te anau after the tramp and it was not looking good for anyone hoping to be outside much. On the Routburn I stopped at hut for lunch on the last day that proved to be only about an hour from the road and had a fair amount of coal and wood in it. The plan was to hitch up to the trail head and hike to the hut and ride out the storm there.

I got picked up by a young woman named Coco and we headed up the road. Long story short; I ditch the hiking idea due to there being almost 2 feet of snow already on the ground at the trail head and proceeded to get stuck in Milford for the next three nights due to the road being closed.

Not a bad place to get stuck.

Coco worked for one of the tourism operators which has tons of extra living space seeing as it is winter. I was given my own room and access to all the food I could eat. Life was good in Milford. The storm was raging all across the bottom half of the South Island and had trapped about 20 tourist in Milford plus the winter staff. No one in, or out.

The pub opened at noon the first day, which made for a good time. These towers of power were amazing and just kept coming...

Still a great place to be stuck.

Waking up the next day wishing the pub had not let us start drinking at noon I trudged over to the sea kayak guide area. Where I found Jess gearing up for a day of fishing. Before I knew it I was jetting out onto the sound for a day of fishing. The day was amazing! We caught all kinds of weird stuff.

First catch of the day. We pulled up everything under the sun and had a great time on the water.

Two sharks on one line. We probably caught 15+ of these over the day.

The scenery was just as good as the fishing.

This was the catch of the day! Strait out of the Pleistocene era, flipping dinosaur.

Crazy! That sound is home to some really weird things.

This thing could eat a softball. We ended up putting everything back except for this dude and a few fish Jess knew were yummy tasting.

The morning of the third day I awoke to hear that the road was open and that afternoon I was able to snag a ride all the way back to Queenstown. In the end my time in Milford was super fun and proved to be nice change of pace during my break.

I would get stuck in this place any day.