Since arriving in Milford Sound I have seen a brochure that suggests that the journey from Queenstown should take about 6 hours by car. As the crow flies it is only about 70km. By car, it is perhaps closer to 300km. The first part of the journey, to Te Anau was very quick. The roads are straight and the weather was sunny. On some sections, the speed limit was a dot behind us. Te Anau proclaims itself to be the gateway to Fjordland and from there it is only 120km to Milford Sound.

On the map, Milford looks small, in reality it is. Being out of the way, we made sure we had somewhere to stay first. The Milford Sound Lodge had room and advised us to bring a full tank of fuel. Personally I think that's just common sense. What would have been much more useful was the suggestion of checking whether snow chains were required or not. Milford Sound has a by-law that snow chains must be carried in certain weather conditions or a NZ$750 fine can be imposed. Renting snow chains is far, far cheaper than paying 250 GBP but no-one told us this until we were halfway beween Te Anau and Milford Sound. So we had to go back, rent some chains and then back out again. That delayed us by two hours and used up 120km of fuel. Grrrrrr. It also meant that it was dark when we got back to where we had been before and the roads were starting to get icy. Perhaps though it was just fate. Including our two hour detour to get chains, the journey from the Queenstown area took six hours. I also managed to do some kiwis a favour on the way by running over a possum. Possum are a threat to kiwis in New Zealand and are seen as pests so I don't feel too bad about it. Besides, the silly thing didn't leave me much choice by running in front of the car.

Milford Sound is indeed small. Our hostel used to be accomodation for the road construction workers in the 1950s and the whole of Milford uses diesel generators for power because it's so remote. So at 11pm it really is lights out when the generator gets turned off.

We had booked a tour of Milford Sound (a fjord by the way) for the following morning, after which we were planning to head for Invercargill. We got to the point of handing back the key to our room when we saw the big notice telling us that the road was closed due to an avalanche or rock fall and that no further news would be available until 3pm. Great!

To further compound matters, it was raining. Our first day of bad weather on the south island. Although apparently it isn't unheard of for rain to fall in Milford Sound, it rains on average 200 days a year here. Now, while the sound is supposed to be beautiful when it rains, we were sort of hoping for a sunny day so that we could see for more than 100m. The cloud was thick and low and it was cold too. In a way, it was beautiful out there and you could see how it could be stunning if you could see far enough. As we reached the end of the fjord and joined the Tasman sea, it got rough though. Many people turned a bit green and I was glad to be outside when a small baby started doing impressions from The Exorcist.

On the way back in, the rain let up a little and the cloud may even have thinned a touch too. Halfway back, the pilot stopped the boat and directed our attention towards a school of dolphins. "Let's see if they want to go for a ride.", he said and we drifted closer for a minute before accelerating once again. Luckily there weren't too many people on board as everyone tried to crowd around the bow watching the dolphins surf the bow wave. That was pretty cool to watch. They literally just sit in the water and get pushed along by the boat. Occasionally they turned, or rolled or jumped ahead and eventually they disappeared somewhere else but for a while these wild dolphins were choosing to play with us. That made our trip worthwhile. I think though we'll have to come back when the weather is better sometime. I'd like to see Milford Sound when the clouds aren't in the way.

The rest of the day we spent back at the hostel. Reading, relaxing, drinking Speight's (beer) and snoozing.

I didn't hold out much hope that the road would be open the following day and I wasn't disappointed as a result. Even before we got out of bed, the distant rumble of avalanches could be heard. There isn't too much to do in Milford Sound. None of the cruises are running today because everyone trapped here has done at least one already. There's a pub, alledgedly, but that's about it. In a way its quite nice not having anything to do. On the other hand, it's annoying not having the choice to go elsewhere.

I think some of the people here are starting to get a bit miffed because they can't leave. From the sounds of it, some of them have flights to catch on Thursday. Our flight is on Saturday but we should easily be able to change the date. One of the boat companies organised a free day of fishing today but we didn't go as they would have had to go out into rough water. It also hailed, rained sideways and there was a really strong wind all day. We just stayed at the hostel. In the evening, the pub advertised that they were going to show a couple of films. Pretty much everyone went down there. The first film was Monsson Wedding. I enjoyed it although the Americans next to me didn't seem to get it judging by their constant, confused exchanges with each other. I spent a few minutes trying to think up some derogatory comments before thinking better of it and just ignoring them. The second film was called Mean Machine and it was a bit of a waste of time. We headed back from the pub at 11.30 and got in just before the heavens REALLY opened.

We awoke to silence the following day, interrupted briefly by the roar of a helicopter passing nearby. The two, coupled together, hinted at an improvement in the weather. It was past 10am and we decided to get up and find out what was happenning.

The weather had indeed improved. The mountains were mostly visible (it turns out that they're quite big too) as was a patch or two blue sky. The prognosis for the road being open had not changed much yet but the Lodge management had decided that since no one would be likely to be driving out today, they were going to hire one of the cruise boats and take everyone on a night cruise and feed them. Jolly nice of them I think. Unfortunately for some they'll have to miss out. As they have flights to catch that they can't change, some people are leaving their hire cars here for the travel insurance people to sort out and flying from the small airstrip today now that the weather is better.

Given that it wasn't raining and we could see something more than 100m away, we decided to go for a walk. We headed past the end of the road and the boat terminal and found a path leading to a very busy waterfall (Bowen Falls). Milford Sound is quite impressive and beautiful when you can actually see something and I can see why people make the trip out here.

It turned out that the night cruise wasn't a cruise at all. Instead, the boat remained moored and we feasted on all the buffet food we could possibly eat. I'm not complaining, it was both fun and filling, almost too filling!

Our flight from Christchurch and our car hire have both been sorted out so we're not under any pressure to get out of Milford yet. The road should (touch wood, or at least melamine) be open on Friday. Apparently a small section got washed away by an avalanche. Tomorrow we'll just go for another walk and be lazy.

Another nice day. Hardly a cloud to be seen anywhere, although that did mean that there was a lot of frost around. The Lodge staff and locals had quite kindly dreamed up something else for us poor strandees to do today. A nice chap in a small motor boat took anyone interested for a 10 minute trip inland where we walked along the Milford Track for a few miles to a lake and a waterfall. The track is apparently something to do with a prison camp from the 1800s and during the summer months probably packed with "trampers". Given the fact that it's currently winter and avalanches and land slips are the norm, the track was a little bit worse for wear. There were quite a few branches down and the path was blocked at a few points by fallen trees. Also, the winter sun could not rise high enough to penetrate the valley we were in so it was just a bit cold. The walk was worth it though, some nice views, a bit of fresh air and exercise were just what was needed.

The road update for the day was encouraging at long last. The message had been "probably Friday" all week long and it looked like it would be Friday after all. Provided that the last bits of land slip were cleaned up quickly enough, the road would be open around midday. We should have known better than to hope too much though. After waiting for an hour or so by the gate in the road, word reached us that it would be 4pm instead. We went back to the lodge to wait in the warmth.

The next ninety minutes were longer and more boring than some premiership matches. We headed back up the road again in plenty of time and were delighted to see that the gate had been opened. We had stop and wait a little further up the road as the road engineers wanted to send everyone through in one convoy, but twenty minutes later we were well and truly on our way. We passed the problem area after a while. About 50m of road had detached itself from the slope of a hill and the engineers had been busy levelling the ground and cutting the route for a new road around the hill. Only when we had passed that section did we allow ourselves to celebrate our escape. From then on it was just a case of putting as much distance as we could between us and Milford Sound.

One annoying thing though was that we had gone all the way back to get snow chains before going to Milford Sound because of the by-law. When word initially came round that the road would open at 4pm, we were told that snow chains would be needed. We were ok with that but so many other did not have them and I couldn't help thinking that was stupid of them. The annoying part was that the engineers stopped working on the road for a while to clear some of the snow and put some grit down so that the stupid people could get through too. Nevermind, at least we escaped.

We reached Te Anau just after dark and headed straight for our hostel.