Fiordland National Park

Today we are cruising through scenic Fiordland National Park.  We will be entering four sounds: Milford Sound, Thompson Sound, which leads into Doubtful Sound, and finally Dusky Sound.  All of these were named by Captain James Cook and his crew when they explored this region in the 1770s.
It is a cloudy, rainy, misty morning as we enter Milford Sound. There is only one word to describe the scenery: stunning.  Last night it started raining and it continued to pour throughout our journey in and out of Milford sound.  While you would suppose that this would spoil the scene, in fact it enhanced it because, though the tops of the mountains were often shrouded in mist and clouds, the rains have produced absolutely magnificent waterfalls.  The waterfalls are everywhere, flowing down massive sheer granite rock faces, some of which rise several thousand feet above the level of the sea.  I have never seen so many waterfalls coming from such massive heights in such volume.  It makes the wall of falls in Jasper National Park minuscule by comparison.  The mountains in the fiords reach elevations of over 4000 feet and the waterfalls begin right from the top.  This area is the most beautiful I have seen in New Zealand.  In addition to the wonderful scenery, the waterway is full of sea life in the form of sea lions, seals and dolphins and multiple types of birds.  As we traverse to Thompson Sound in the Tasman Sea we pass humpback whales.
Thompson Sound is also shrouded in mist but now an occasional shaft of sunlight breaks through the cloud cover.  The mountains in this sound are more rounded in contrast to the sheer cliff faces of Milford Sound and the waterfalls are less prominent but still fantastic.  Thompson Sound is one of the most seismically active locations in NZ and in 2001 it was the epicenter of a 6.1 earthquake.  After Thompson Sound we enter Doubtful Sound named by Captain Cook after he had doubts about the ability of his ship to exit the sound.  These two sounds are only accessible by sea as the road network is poor at best.  Doubtful Sound has a number of small rounded islands throughout and has a serene appeal to it. Our final fiord is Dusky Sound which we reach after a foggy jaunt in the Tasman Sea.  I am beginning to get a sense as to why they say the crossing of the Tasman Sea to Australia may be rocky.  
The skies begin to clear at Dusky Sound, so named by Captain Cook because that was the time of day when he first spotted this fiord.  The sound has a length of 26 miles.  A number of the features within the sound were named by Cook and his sailors.  Names include Dentention Cove, a place where the ship was stranded due to lack of wind, Goose Cove, where Cook's men released some geese, and Ducks Cove, which was given the name due to the fact that they shot 14 ducks at that location.  This sound has the fewest waterfalls but the verdant islands and seabirds make for a great day viewing the scenery. As we exit Dusky Cove to transit the Tasman Sea to Burnie, Tasmania, we reach the southernmost point in our journey at 45 degrees 48 minutes south latitude.    Our goal is to post some more photos when we get to Burnie.

Sea terms:
Fathom: is a nautical measurement coming from old English word " faedm" which means to embrace and is 6 feet in length. It is so named because its original measure was the distance between the fingertips of a man's outstretched arms.  Burials at sea are conducted at a depth of 6 fathoms (as opposed to 6 feet on land). and it is from this we get the expression to "deep six" something.