We had two days as sea as we crossed the Tasman Sea toward New Zealand. The Celebrity Solstice is a beautiful ship, all decorated for Christmas.
The food has been superb, as has been the music throughout the boat. After two rather rough days at sea, with 12′ to 15′ waves, we woke at six a.m. at the entrance to Milford Sound, the first of three fiords in Fiordland National Park. For many years the sound was not explored because there appeared to be no clear entrance. We couldn’t believe how close to both walls we were.
It was raining and waterfalls cascaded down the sides of the sheer cliffs. Snow caps the peaks. This is truly spectacular country, largely because you are so close to the sides of the cliffs. New Zealand is part of the Zealandia plate, which is still 93% submerged.
Bowen waterfall
Sterling Waterfall
Steve shot this video of dusky dolphins following our boat.
Our captain did a 360 turn in front of Sterling waterfall.
leaving Milford Sound
The fiords are quite a distance apart. Doubtful Sound is larger and deeper than Milford Sound, the peaks reaching 1,300 to 1,500 meters. It is also dotted with islands.
The sounds took 200 million years to create and were carved by glacier action 100,000 years ago. The Southern Alps of New Zealand were formed when the Pacific Plate and the Austalian plate collided.
Doubtful Sound
Dusky Sound is the larges of the sounds, 40 kilometers long and 8 kilometers at its widest. Captain Cook spent two months exploring the sound on his second voyage in 1770. Resolution Island, which forms one side of the sound, is a preservation island to protect bird and plant life that is threatened by rats, shoats, possums, and other invasive species. We saw and fur seals basking on rocks and more dusky dolphins.
The end of Dusky Sound is an archipelago of islands. The pictures are bluish because they were taken from inside.