Milford Sound  and Glow Worms                                    February 10, 2000

Even in a country known for its natural beauty, the Fiordlands area and, in particular, Milford Sound are special.  Remotely situated on the west coast of the South Island, the Sound is a long way from anywhere.  Our departure point was Queenstown, nearly 220 Km from the coast.  An intermediate overnight stop was planned at Lake Te Anau, about halfway there, since there's very limited lodging at Milford Sound.  Bus travel is a popular option for this trip.  A virtual convoy of buses (we counted more than 50) leave Queenstown in the morning and return 12 hours later.

We awoke to a light rain at Lake Te Anau, but were pretty much committed to completing the trip to Milford Sound.  As it's one of the wettest spots on the planet, with up to 280 inches of rain a year, we expected more of the same throughout the day.  Optional stops along the way -- walks and scenic overlooks -- were bypassed or viewed through water-streaked windows.  Still, the scenery was amazing.  Milford Sound and the deep valleys en route were formed by glaciers.  The rock faces, either bare or with trees somehow maintaining a foothold, go straight up on both sides of the road, up to 6000 ft!  And on a rainy day like ours, there are waterfalls everywhere -- thousands and thousands of waterfalls.  Some are thin narrow streams rushing down the rock face, others are wide, billowing whitewater. The road to the sound ends at a visitor center and dock, where several large tour boats await.  The boat trip through the fiords takes about an hour and a half.  Fortunately the cloud cover was rarely so low that we couldn’t make out the rock faces looming all around.  This picture tells it all.  If you click on them, you'll see the seemingly little boats that carry about 150 passengers.

We booked the extended fiord tour, which included a stop at a special observation platform built for viewing the sound's unique underwater life.  Although the sound is filled with sea water to depths of nearly 2000 feet, there is a layer of fresh water several meters deep on the surface (remember all that rain!.)  As water washes down the forested slopes, it picks up lots of organics and turns a rather dirty brown color.  This fresh water layer then effectively blocks sunlight from entering the salt water below.  As a result, marine life that normally thrives in very dark, deep ocean waters find similar conditions quite close to the surface in the sound, making them relatively easy to see.

Encounters with unusual critters continued the next day.  We joined an early morning boat trip across Lake Te Anau to explore caves inhabited by tiny glow worms.  After a brief lecture at an information center, we hunkered down through a low passageway into the cave.  Guides alternately led us along walkways, past underground waterfalls and punted us across pools in small boats using ropes suspended in the dark above the water. Our goal was the Grotto of Silence, or something like that, where thousands of glow worms hang from the limestone ceilings.  These 2-3 mm. "worms" are actually fly larvae.  They live as larvae for several months before spending two days as flies, quickly mating and dying.  In their worm stage, their stomachs light up to attract moths and other insects, which they catch with their sticky, threadlike tentacles. The hungrier the glow worm, the brighter its light.  After getting to the darkest part of the cave, all you can see are the glow worms, looking like bright bluish stars just overhead.  Quite a remarkable sight.  

Glow, little glow worm, glow.

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