With such a dire forecast ("complex low moving in, heavy rain warning, winds up to 100 kph"), I was afraid our kayaking trip to Milford Sound in Fiordland National Park would be canceled. However, it was clear, blue skies when we woke up early to hike to The Divide by 7:45 am. We were picked up by Fiordland Wilderness Experience and had a thirty minute drive to the sound. We enjoyed the views along the way of the dramatic granite cliffs shooting straight up in to the sky. The weather was still looking good while we geared up and got our kayaking instructions. We had fabulous views of the sound, including two of the most famous Milford Sound icons; Mitre Peak and Bowen Falls (we didn't get any pictures while kayaking, so I scanned in a postcard showing Mitre Peak). The magnitude of the sound was impressive. I realized the sound was large, but got a really appreciation of the scale when one of the large cruise ships passed by Bowen Falls and it looked like a little toy boat.

We paddled out into the sound and practiced rafting up (we were in double kayaks). After a bit the weather did start to head south and we turned around to paddle back to the protected cove. The clouds above were in long streaky shapes moving quickly across the sky, indicative of high winds above. The blue skies turned to gray and the waves started to increase, with white capping further in the main channel of the sound. The winds started gusting, so we rafted up and prepared to sail back. This involved the two outer back people tying the sail to their oars and holding them as a mast while the two outer people in the front held on to the bottom of the sail. The people in the middle two boats held on to make sure all the kayaks stayed together. When we were ready we threw up the sail to catch the wind, but the wind had died down so we broke apart and started paddling. Then the wind would start up again and we would repeat. After several iterations we finally caught some serious gusts and sailed quite a ways back towards our launch point. When we got close to land the wind started bouncing off the walls and coming head on, so we paddled the rest of the way. We turned around and saw "willy walls" kicking up mist and water that looked like mini tornadoes. Amazing how fast the weather changed on us. We paddled through some rough water and reached a small lagoon where it was calm. It started to rain while we explored the lagoon and we saw where the famous Milford Track ends.

It wasn't all that surprising that it rained given that Fiordland gets rain 200 days out of the year. The steep granite cliffs surrounding the sound don't soak up any of the rain, so it all runs directly into the sound and creates a layer of fresh water on top of the salt water. By the time we ate lunch and packed up it was raining pretty heavily. On the way back to Te Anau we saw hundreds of waterfalls, most of them in places we hadn't seen waterfalls on our way in during the morning. As the guides said "this is when Milford Sound really goes off". I had never seen so many waterfalls in my life and it was an impressive sight.