Milford Sound: cruises, the road in and things to do

Where it is, and why there is no town

Milford Sound sits in the south west of the South Island, inside Fiordland National Park and the Te Wāhipounamu World Heritage Area. The closest town is Te Anau, 119 km and about two hours back down the Milford Road. Milford itself is a wharf, a small airstrip, a cafe, the Milford Sound Lodge and a few dozen people who work there. There is no fuel, no supermarket and, past Te Anau Downs, no reliable phone signal. Plan as if you are going somewhere remote, because you are.

The Māori name, Piopiotahi, refers to a single piopio, a now extinct thrush, in the story of Māui. Captain John Grono named it Milford Haven after his Welsh home in around 1812, and the shorter name stuck. Geologically it is a fiord, carved by glaciers and flooded by the sea, which is why the walls go down almost as steeply below the waterline as above it: the fiord is more than 290 m deep in places.

Cruise, kayak, fly or walk: what there is to do

Nearly everyone cruises, and the cruise deserves its reputation. Boats run from the wharf to the Tasman Sea and back in about one hour and forty five minutes to two hours, nosing under Stirling Falls close enough to wet the front deck and past the New Zealand fur seals hauled out on Seal Rock. Operators include RealNZ, Southern Discoveries, Jucy Cruise and Mitre Peak Cruises; the smaller boats get closer to the walls, the bigger ones have more shelter when it pours. On 50 of our itineraries the cruise is the RealNZ nature cruise with lunch included.

• Overnight cruise: the Milford Mariner sails in the late afternoon after the day boats have gone, anchors in a sheltered arm, and puts kayaks and a tender in the water. You wake up inside the fiord with nobody else there. It is on 5 of our itineraries.
• Sea kayaking: guided paddles run from the wharf and from Deepwater Basin, from a couple of hours to a full day. Being at water level under a 1,000 m wall is a different experience from a boat deck.
• Scenic flights: the flight from Queenstown takes about 40 minutes over the Southern Alps and lands on the Milford airstrip; fly, cruise, fly packages turn a twelve hour day into five. Weather cancels them often, so book a flight with a coach fallback.
• The underwater observatory: Southern Discoveries runs the Discovery Centre at Harrison Cove, where you descend 10 m to see black coral that normally lives far deeper, tricked upward by the dark freshwater layer on the surface.
• Walks: the Milford Foreshore Walk is twenty minutes from the car park to the classic Mitre Peak view. Key Summit, off the Routeburn Track from the Divide, is three hours return and the best short walk on the road. The Chasm, 10 km before Milford, is a twenty minute loop to a river that has bored holes through solid rock.
• The Milford Track: 53.5 km over four days from the head of Lake Te Anau to Sandfly Point. The Great Walk season runs from late October to the end of April, huts book out the day they open, and the guided version sleeps in private lodges (Glade House, Pompolona, Mitre Peak Lodge). The guided walk is on 4 of our itineraries.

How to get to Milford Sound

There is one road in, State Highway 94, and it is one of the great drives of the country: up the Eglinton Valley, past the Mirror Lakes, over the Divide, through the 1.2 km Homer Tunnel and down the switchbacks into the Cleddau Valley. From Te Anau it is 119 km. Allow two hours without stopping, and you will stop, so allow three. From Queenstown it is 288 km each way, about four hours of driving, and the coaches leave at seven in the morning and get back around seven at night.

Two practical points that catch people out. First, fuel: fill up in Te Anau, there is none further on. Second, winter. From about May to November the road passes through avalanche terrain and the NZ Transport Agency closes it for control work after heavy snow, sometimes for a day, occasionally longer. Carrying chains is a legal requirement on the Milford Road in that season, and rental companies will tell you whether your car may go at all. Check the live status the morning you leave, not the night before.

Day trip from Queenstown, or overnight in Te Anau

The honest answer to "is the drive from Queenstown worth it" is yes, once, and it is a long day: around thirteen hours door to door, eight of them on a coach. It works if you have only one spare day in Queenstown. It works less well if you have two, because a night in Te Anau turns the same trip into a relaxed morning drive, an early cruise before the crowd, and an afternoon with time for Key Summit or the glow worm caves across the lake.

That is how most of the itineraries here are built: a night or two in Te Anau, Milford as a day from there, then on to Queenstown. The overnight cruise is the upgrade for people who want the fiord to themselves, and the Milford Track is for people who want to earn it. Our guide on the day trip against the overnight goes through the timings, and Milford against Doubtful Sound settles the other question we get asked every week.

Weather, rain and when to go

Milford Sound records around 6,800 mm of rain a year, which is why the rainforest grows on bare rock and why the waterfalls exist. There is no dry season. Summer, from December to February, is the warmest and busiest, with long days and the most tour coaches. March and April are our favourite months: settled weather more often, fewer people, and the Great Walk season still open. Winter is cold, clear more often than people expect, and quiet, with snow on the peaks and the risk of road closures described above. Spring brings the heaviest rain and the biggest waterfalls.

Whatever the month, take a proper rain jacket rather than a poncho, and something for sandflies. The sandflies at the wharf and at Sandfly Point are relentless in still weather; repellent works, long sleeves work better. The MetService forecast for Milford Sound is the one to check, and the cruise operators sail in almost anything short of a gale.

Wildlife you can reasonably expect to see

New Zealand fur seals are close to a certainty: a colony lives on Seal Rock inside the fiord and every cruise passes it. Bottlenose dolphins live in the fiord year round and ride the bows of the boats more days than not. The Fiordland crested penguin, tawaki, breeds on the shore from July and is most often seen in October and November when the chicks are being fed. Beneath the surface, the dark layer of fresh water that floats on the sea lets black coral and other deep water species live within a few metres of the surface, which is what the observatory shows you. Kea, the alpine parrot, hang around the Homer Tunnel car parks looking for rubber to eat; do not feed them.