Milford Sound

The day opened with a steady rain giving way to clearing skies and a lovely rainbow.

We packed lunches and headed north for Milford Sound for the day. Alison and I had been there twice before, the second time on an overnight sleep away boat with Steve and Leslie where we spent the night in the Sound.

We made a few stops along the way including a lakeside stroll.

Then we walked a bit through billiard-table flat Eglinton Valley running between high mountains.

Lester identified the grass as red fescue. We avoided munching on any as it had been freshly poisoned by the New Zealand pest eradication folks looking to eliminate rats and stotes.

The rain picked up as we drove north generating numerous streams of falling water tumbling down from the high Cliffs.

Then it was through the long tunnel and down to the boat terminal area.

Huffing and puffing down, we were the last party on the last boat of the day, a smallish catamaran with an engaging and quite youthful lady skipper.

The rain picked up and the streams of white water broke out everywhere and intensified the permanent falls.

As we approached the mouth at the entrance to the Tasmin Sea the wind really got going with rain too hard to face into, gusts to fifty and dramatic waves.

Back at the dock we started back to Te Anau amid gradually clearing skies that gave us some nice views.

I must say I ran into one real head-scratcher today in the men’s room at the Sound boat terminal where this notice was affixed to the wall.

Sorry for the repeat pic, but as noted in an earlier post I have not found anyway to delete a pic once uploaded.

But back to the men’s room notice: I can’t understand why the authorities posting this became so concerned that users might take it into their heads to chew gum in a urinal, let alone rubbish, that they needed to post signs (there were several actually). From what I can tell, very little gum chewing occurs in a urinal – I’ve never seen it done and don’t expect to.

But never mind that, who in Christ chews rubbish in a urinal?