Trip from Te Anau to Milford Sound

We took a coach with about 20 other people. They all got on in Queenstown so we saved 2 hours as we were picked up in Te Anau.
The trip could be done in less than 2 hours but ours took over 3 hours as we stopped 4-5 times.  The coach driver, Dave, had great commentary. The company we used was Southern Discoveries and we were happy with the whole trip.  On the way there Dave talked a lot but on the way back we saw a movie called The Hunt for the Wilderpeople by the now famous NZ director Taika Waititi.  He has a small part in it.  Excellent movie for a bus ride or anytime!

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We stopped at Mirror Lakes which had a board walk down to them and parallel then an exit.  Nice photo op.

The traffic to the Sound had issues.  One is the Homer Tunnel which is a very rough hewned tunnel that goes 1.2 km with a 10:1 gradient. The walls are rough rock with pipes and extra lights hung and two buses could not fit side-by-side.  I took a video as it was quite eerie then did a screenshot to get the 2 photos.  If you want to read more Homer Tunnel info . The other issue that in February there had been the storm of the century which resulted in flooding and destruction of the road.  It had been opened to two-way traffic 3 days before.  If we had gone a week earlier, they allowed traffic in one direction for an hour, with no private vehicles, then in the other direction for an hour. Lucky for us, we had minor inconveniences where short sections were controlled for less than 10 minutes. 

When we finally emerged from the tunnel we were met with the true beginning of the Milford area.  I It was name Sound but actually is a Fjord as fjords are formed by glaciers as this area was versus a sound which is formed by rivers. The many waterfalls were the results of suffering the rainy weather.  Apparently when it is sunny these waterfalls dry up very quickly.

A little further on and our last stop was at a small river that was beautiful with its rocks and an former bridge that now allowed tourists to stop and watch the rushing river.  A short drive later, we arrived at the terminal for the boats.