{"id":1347,"date":"2011-02-21T15:03:14","date_gmt":"2011-02-21T08:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/?p=1347"},"modified":"2011-02-21T15:03:14","modified_gmt":"2011-02-21T08:03:14","slug":"milford-sound-new-zealand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/2011\/02\/21\/milford-sound-new-zealand\/","title":{"rendered":"Milford Sound, New Zealand"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Milford<\/a><\/p>\n

Total Miles Traveled: <\/strong>59,378<\/p>\n

One of the highlights in Fiordlands (southwest of the South Island of New Zealand) is Milford Sound, which is technically not a sound (which we learned is formed by running water) but a fiord carved out by glaciers over the course of thousands of years. \u00a0 The drive to Milford Sound is also rated as one of the top must-drive roads in New Zealand and it lived up to the hype. \u00a0Really breathtaking in spots. \u00a0It’s about 3 hours from Queenstown, so if that’s too much of a trek, stay in Te Anau which is much closer.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Milford Sound is the more well-traveled of two famous sounds in the Fiordlands, the other being Doubtful Sound. \u00a0What’s amazing about this place is how tall the surrounding mountains are and how small you feel. \u00a0 You can’t really get a sense of it until you are actually there next to the wall or see a huge sailing vessel look like a toy boat next to the cliffs.<\/p>\n

\"Milford<\/a><\/p>\n

So, since it was such a well-traveled destination, we decided to try something a bit offbeat – well, not offbeat for us per se, because it was scuba diving.<\/p>\n

Why on earth would we want to go scuba diving in freezing water? \u00a0 We don’t know. \u00a0It was probably a bad idea. \u00a0But the selling point was that we would dive through murky glacial runoff (fresh, 44 degree F water) for the first 15 feet and then in to clear, 63 degree F sea water underneath. \u00a0And why is this significant? \u00a0Because you’d see sealife there that’s normally at super deep depths but is very close to the surface in this environment because of the murky runoff above that filters out the light.<\/p>\n

So how cold does 44 degree F water feel (even after wearing 7mm wetsuits, hood, gloves, boots)? \u00a0@#$(*@@! cold. \u00a0So cold that it literally took Lisa’s breath away and she started to go in to shock… that is, until our divemaster, a crusty former Egyptian Navy Seal, told her to breath in to her regulator and pushed her head underwater. \u00a0Tough love! \u00a0But it worked! \u00a0She was much happier to be underwater. And here’s Lisa after she made it down:<\/p>\n

\"Milford<\/a><\/p>\n

The first thing we saw were spiny lobsters – you see them just about anywhere. \u00a0But they were huge. \u00a0Probably about 18 inches not including antennae.<\/p>\n

\"Milford<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s an example of deep sea life – black coral. \u00a0“Yes, but it’s white”, you say. \u00a0Verry observant. \u00a0The reason it’s called black coral is the skeleton of the coral is black, so when the dead version of this would wash up on shore, it looked black. \u00a0But healthy black coral is actually white!<\/p>\n

\"Milford<\/a><\/p>\n

Some other sea life – anemone:<\/p>\n

\"Milford<\/a><\/p>\n

Stinging hydroids:<\/p>\n

\"Milford<\/a><\/p>\n

Here we are trying to warm up in between dives:<\/p>\n

\"Milford<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s our divemaster. \u00a0Yes, that is a rusty saw in his hands. \u00a0I’d be lying if I told you it was standard SCUBA equipment (no way!). \u00a0He was on his way down to saw some rope off of the propeller.<\/p>\n

\"Milford<\/a><\/p>\n

We were hoping to see this baby fur seal underwater, but he was just chilling out.<\/p>\n

\"Milford<\/a><\/p>\n

Sea urchin:<\/p>\n

\"Milford<\/a><\/p>\n

Brittle star with 11 legs:<\/p>\n

\"Milford<\/a><\/p>\n

After our dives, we did a mini-hike to a waterfall with glacial runoff. \u00a0 It was COLD.<\/p>\n

\"Milford<\/a><\/p>\n

Some more photos of Milford Sound:<\/p>\n

\"Milford<\/a><\/p>\n

See how small that ship looks against the wall? \u00a0 That ship carries hundreds of people.<\/p>\n

\"Milford<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Milford<\/a><\/p>\n

See the slideshow below for a look at all of our photos:<\/p>\n

[flickrslideshow acct_name=”tony-chen” id=”72157626134060232″]<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Total Miles Traveled: 59,378 One of the highlights in Fiordlands (southwest of the South Island of New Zealand) is Milford Sound, which is technically not a sound (which we learned is formed by running water) but a fiord carved out by glaciers over the course of thousands of years. \u00a0 The drive to Milford Sound […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}