We drove to Queenstown to set up base for both a flight over and trip on the Milford Sound. Milford Sound is a geological wonder I had been hearing about for years.

As the world’s continents began to shuffle around each other to form the unmistakable outlines we see on maps today, tectonic activity was stirring in the Milford Sound area. As two plates began to rub together, the rocks beneath splintered and shifted, protruding through the waters to form the mountains that tower over New Zealand’s Fiordlands.

During the most recent ice age, 18,000 years ago - the volcanic sediment that came to characterize Milford Sound gave way to sharp glaciers. Ice firmly embedded itself from the mountaintops down to the valleys, and although it would later melt, the stamp it left on Milford Sound formed much of its mysterious character.Floating down towards the Tasman sea we could see how the hills on either side became more rounded as we approached the terminal end of the former glacier. 

Captain Cook passed the entrance to Milford and so it remained unexplored until 1812.

The text day we took two flight: from Queenstown to Cook Airprt- then over thre glactial ramge and then to Cook-  on the reurn  our first pilot flew us back from cook over Milford and so we approached flying up the sound seeing it form the air.