Milford Sound Extravaganza

From Queentown Amy and I headed to Milford Sound. Boating, beauty, and boat-loads of tourists is what we had in mind for our time at Milford. We spent two nights and three days in the area, enjoy!

The Holloyford River is talked up in the guide book as being wicked sweet and a highlight of boaters paddling trip to NZ. As with most sweet runs in NZ the Holloyford is at the high side of grade IV boating so we were really looking for some folks to join us on the river.

The Holloyford

We drove over the river and saw that it was at a sweet looking level so continued to drive towards Milford in hopes of finding some boaters! After gawking at the beauty that is Milford Sound for a bit we headed to the sea kayaking outfitters. We totally scored! Jimmy, a resident sea kayak guide, WW boater, and awesome guy had the day off and really wanted to go boating! So we loaded up the car and off we went!

Jimmy and Amy ready for some fun

Sweet waterfall on the way to the put-in

Amy and Jimmy taking a look at a nice drop

The first run was so much fun we had to do it again! At the take out the second time Jimmy asked me if we had plans for the night, I said no and he proceeded to tell me that the only bar in Milford Sound was having its annual "Lady of the Sound" drag show tonight and we were all invited.

You see, Milford Sound sees about 3000 people a day in the summer but they only stay for the day. The "town" of Milford Sound has around 300 people that are all connected to the tourism industry some how. So every evening the population goes from 3000 back to around 300. The local bar puts on a lot of fun activities, like the drag show, to keep the staff from going crazy.

As you can see about 75% of the town was there


If you came in drag and entered the show you got free beer! so all the contestants were on their A game...


Good times

The Winner!

At the bar you could buy a "tower." It holds a lot of beer and costs a fair bit but looks really cool!

The next morning the clouds were no more and we were treated to our first real view of the sound. We made breakfast on a very well placed picnic table.

Table with a view please


Yummy


Pretty

The night before at the drag show we bought the sea kayak guides a round of beer as payment for the use of a sea kayak the next day. We totally scored because they don't rent their stuff out to people, you have to pay the big bucks for a guided trip; but being boaters and buying them beer won them over and off we went on a fun fillled day.

Let the adventure begin. Our goal was to paddle to the end of the sound, a 15km paddle each way


The dynamic duo


Amy!


Big boat, bigger wall


Richard!

After 5 some hours of paddling we made it to the outlet of the sound! and to our luck a sweet tail wind kicked in and helped us make it back before dark. It was an amazing experience and a very long day.

Amy and I camped in a nice field for the two nights. The sea kayak guides have a very unique housing system...

The "Paddle on Inn." Amy thought it was foul, disgusting, repulsive... I thought is was beautiful.


The Sea Kayak guides sponsor a nude run every year. It seemed like something they would do.

The next day Amy and I went on a hike up to the top of one of the main waterfalls into the sound.

The hike was fun but the view from the top was better


Richard doing some pointless scouting


Big waterfall


Bigger waterfall


Kinda looked like California whitewater


We took a more exciting route on the way down

All in all it was an amazing few days. We said goodbye to our sea kayak friends and were on our way.