Kayaking into Milford Sound

Milford Sound is the picture that sells New Zealand: a fiord cut deep into the southwest corner of the South Island, sheer black cliffs rising straight out of dark water, waterfalls dropping hundreds of metres down their faces. Most people see it from the deck of a big cruise boat. We saw it from a kayak, at water level, and that changes everything.

You earn it before you arrive. The road in from Te Anau is one of the great drives anywhere, climbing through the Eglinton valley and a tunnel blasted through solid rock before dropping you into the fiord. We went early, ahead of the day-trip buses, which is the trick: for a while the place is almost yours.

A boat took us deep into the sound, then left us in the kayaks to paddle back. From down there the scale is overwhelming: cliffs going up further than you can comfortably look, the water black and still, the only sound your own paddle. We edged as close to the waterfalls as we dared, close enough to feel the spray off Stirling Falls, and drifted past seals hauled out on the rocks, barely caring we were there.

It is hard work, paddling a fiord. Our hands were wrecked by the end, and the guide eventually rigged a blanket as a makeshift sail to tow the group along. But that is the price of seeing Milford from the inside instead of over the railing of a cruise ship, and it is worth every aching shoulder.

Everyone should see Milford Sound. Not everyone needs to do it by kayak, but if you can paddle it, do, it turns a viewpoint into something you are part of. Go early, get on the water, and let the place put you in your place.