Fiordland

As you make your way along the road to Milford you enter Fiordland National Park. This route is as spectacular as the Sound itself. We are traveling up glaciated canyons, with cascading waterfalls, and dense forests.
We first drive through NZ silver, red and mountain beech forests. These trees can get quite large - 90 ft. tall and up to 600 yrs. old. They don't look like No. Hemisphere beeches as their leaves are quite small. Surprisingly, they are evergreen, like most native NZ trees. As we get to the other side of the pass where the rainfall is more abundant, the understory is so dense it would be impassable.
Most of the streams have the color of a clear aquamarine gemstone.