Named by the early settlers as Milford Sound, it’s actually a Fjord, the mountains having been carved by an ancient glacier.

Professor Google says ‘Sounds are formed when a river valley is flooded by the sea, whereas Milford Sound was formed by the erosion of ancient glaciers.’

Apparently the inlet from the sea was missed by Captain Cook as its hard to see the entrance from the seaward side.

Its around a 4 hour drive from Queenstown, but some make it more quickly by taking a light aircraft or even a helicopter!

The views on the journey to Milford Sound are fabulous and worth a few stops along the way.

Milford Sound is a unique and truly magical, place and it is also one of the wettest places on earth with an average of 182 rainfall days per year!

It didn’t rain when we went but we had plenty of cloud cover to make it look suitably dramatic.

The boat journey around the fjord is about 2 hrs long and its a lovely trip with such majestic scenery around you.

There are waterfalls along the way but when we went the captain explained they had not had as much rainfall recently, so some of the waterfalls were a bit weaker than usual.

There is some wildlife to be seen, above is a possum and we saw a seal colony there also.

Sometimes dolphins have been spotted too.

The white marks on the rocks below are glacial striations, abrasions and gouges made by the glacier as it moved along the bedrock.

A wonderful day seeing more of New Zealand’s quite fabulous landscape, next we start heading north to Kaikoura.