Milford Sound / Piopiotahi
Interesting facts
- Since the glacier that carved the fiord melted about 16,000 years ago, at least 16 rockfalls of more than a million cubic metres each have crashed into its waters.
- Mitre Peak is really a tight cluster of five summits that lines up as a single point from most viewpoints; its Māori name is Rahotu.
- The peak takes its English name from Captain John Lort Stokes of HMS Acheron, who thought its outline resembled a bishop's mitre.
- Jim Dennistoun made the first ascent of Mitre Peak alone in 1911; doubters were silenced in 1914 when climbers found his handkerchief in a summit cairn.
- Lady Bowen Falls, at about 162 metres the taller of the two permanent waterfalls, honours the wife of Governor George Bowen, who sailed into the sound in 1871.
- A single day can bring as much as 250 mm of rain, and soaked forest sometimes peels off the cliffs in tree avalanches whose scars are visible along the sound.
- Milford Sound / Piopiotahi is one of roughly 90 New Zealand places given an official dual name under the 1998 Treaty of Waitangi settlement with Ngāi Tahu.
- The Homer Tunnel was begun in 1935 by Depression relief workers with picks and wheelbarrows; the rock was pierced in 1940, but war and avalanches delayed its opening.
- The tunnel's walls are still bare, unlined granite, and it drops at roughly a one-in-ten gradient from its eastern portal at 945 metres.
- Humpback and southern right whales are seen in the fiord more and more often as their populations recover.
Why it is worth it
Milford Sound / Piopiotahi is a fiord in the far southwest of New Zealand's South Island, cut by glaciers into the mountains of Fiordland and running about 15 km inland from the Tasman Sea. Its walls rise sheer from the water for 1,200 metres or more, and above them stand peaks such as the Elephant and the Lion, named for their shapes, and Mitre Peak, which climbs 1,692 metres straight out of the sound. Rudyard Kipling called it the eighth wonder of the world. The fiord lies within Fiordland National Park and the Te Wāhipounamu World Heritage Area.
Rain is part of its beauty. With an average of more than 6,400 mm a year, this is the wettest inhabited place in New Zealand, and after heavy rain hundreds of temporary waterfalls stream down the cliffs, some of them a thousand metres long; the smaller ones may be blown into spray before they ever reach the water. Two falls, Lady Bowen and Stirling, run all year. Fresh water stained brown by tannins from the forest floats on top of the salt water and darkens the depths, so black coral, normally a deep-sea creature, grows as little as 10 metres below the surface. Seals, the southernmost wild bottlenose dolphins and Fiordland penguins live in the sound.
The Māori name recalls a legend: after the death of the demigod Māui, a single piopio, a now extinct native bird, flew here to mourn him. The sealer John Grono gave the fiord its European name, after Milford Haven in his native Wales. Its narrow entrance hid it from early navigators, James Cook among them. Road access came only with the Homer Tunnel, completed in 1953, while the Milford Track over the McKinnon Pass, one of the country's earliest walking routes, leads to the sound on foot. Boat tours of one to two hours depart from the visitor centre at the small settlement, and an underwater observatory at Harrison Cove shows the black coral in its natural setting.
Getting there
The fiord is reached by State Highway 94, the Milford Road, 119 km from the town of Te Anau through the Homer Tunnel. Queenstown Airport (ZQN) is the nearest major airport, about 83 km away in a straight line but much further by road via Te Anau. Most visitors stay in Te Anau or Queenstown; Invercargill is the nearest city, about 200 km away.
Plan your visit
We have no confirmed visit data yet. Once it is confirmed, this block also carries the date it was checked.
Nearby places
- Mitre Peak 2.0 km · summit
- Sutherland Falls 23.1 km · waterfall
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Milford Sound is a fiord in the south west of New Zealand's South Island within Fiordland National Park, Piopiotahi Marine Reserve, and the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage site. It has been judged the world's top travel destination in an international survey and is acclaimed as New Zealand's most famous tourist destination. Rudyard Kipling called it the eighth Wonder of the World. The fiord is most commonly accessed via road by tour coach, with the road terminating at a small village also called Milford Sound.
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