Cheddar River

Chad fell asleep by 9 pm last night and slept straight through to nearly 7 this morning. His man cold is better today. We were on the road by shortly after 8 and headed towards Milford Sound.

The weather didn't look too bad as we started our drive as the anticipation built for what is supposed to be one of the best stretches of road in New Zealand. Not long after the clouds got lower and lower and the helicopters trying to give tours eventually turned around and scud ran (runned?) back home. We decided to try the Key Summit Hike, Chad was hopeful we would hike through the clouds. After an hour of walking uphill through the mist we came to a junction to go Howden Lake/hut or Key Summit. We were still hopeful so went to the lake first hoping the clouds would lift.

Howden Lake sure would have been pretty if we could have seen more than 200 feet. The Howden Hut was a bunk style cabin for backpackers, we didn't go inside because a sign said to take off your wet clothes, although we saw a few people ignoring the sign anyway. The facility did have flush toilets and running water which was surprising as we were an hour's walk from anywhere. The way it sounds all the huts on this particular track are like this. Needless to say the clouds did not lift by the time we got back to the Intersection. We asked some people coming down how the weather was and it was the same so we opted to not hike another half hour up with no reward.

We got back to the car around noon and went to the shelter/bus stop to make some lunch. As Chad was Loading up his sandwhich with whatever leftover samdwhich meat that was in the leftover bag and adding pringles for a little something extra, the person next to him was making a wrap with hummus, fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and cheese......out of his backpacking gear. It made us a feel a bit inadequate.

We drove on further and did a quick walk to the Lake Marian water fall before turning off down the gravel Hollyford Road. We made a quick stop at a store/cabins/museum to look around before driving to the end of the road Humboldt Falls. Chad saw an airstrip on the way so naturally pulled off to check it out. A quick hike to the humboldt falls was worth it. It was a pretty high, 3 tiered water fall. We made our way back to the main road, getting the van completely filthy from the wet gravel and continued on to Milford. We got to the Homer Tunnel just in time to wait the 7 minutes for the light to change so we could go through the 1.5 lane wide tunnel. The wait was worth it as we got to take in all the waterfalls around us. One good thing about the wet day was all the water falls. Everywhere you looked there was water running down the mountainside. It was the same on the other side of the tunnel.

One more stop before Milford brought us to The Chasm Falls. This was more of a deep channel that a river cut vs a waterfall. Impressive nonetheless. We arrived at the Milford Sound Lodge around 3 to check into our site. It was still drizzling so we got settled in and went for a beer in the lodge. Then decided to shower before they got too crowded. Back in the van we made up our "couch" and read for awhile. This is the first place with no functional WiFi or cell service. We figured we'd get an early start on dinner since we had to use the common area since the weather wasn't cooperating. It was still really busy, but we got our salmon and green beans cooked and found a place on the couch to eat. We've been sitting in the front of the van reading since. It'll be another early night. It's still raining.Read more