New Zealand · Fiordland
Milford Sound (Te Anau)
The most famous fiord in the southern hemisphere, at the end of the country's greatest road.
Milford Sound is the one piece of Fiordland almost everyone sees: a glacier-cut fiord where Mitre Peak lifts straight out of black water and waterfalls pour off the walls after rain, which here is most of the time. Nobody really stays in the fiord itself. The base is Te Anau, a quiet lake town two hours south, at the start of the Milford Track and the Kepler. Between them runs one of the great mountain roads, through beech forest and an unlined tunnel driven through the divide.
Suggested stay
2–4 days
Language
English, Māori
Currency
NZD
Timezone
NZST (UTC+12)
Why you'll love Milford Sound (Te Anau)
The fiord Mitre Peak rising sheer from the water, seals on the rocks near Dale Point, and waterfalls that appear on every wall within minutes of rain
The road in the Eglinton Valley, the Mirror Lakes, the Homer Tunnel and a kea working over the car park at the top
Walking the Milford Track and the Kepler both start from Te Anau, and Key Summit gives you the same country in a single day
Emptiness past the day boats, Fiordland is a million hectares of beech forest and hanging valleys with almost no roads in it
Best time to visit
Jan-Mar
Wet year-round · 18-20° days
45.414° S, 167.718° E
UTC+12 · Pacific/Auckland
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Weather & when to go to Milford Sound (Te Anau)
Month by month: typical highs and lows, rainfall and rain days.
✓ Best Jan-Mar
Watch for Sep, Dec monsoon flooding risk
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
When to avoid Milford Sound (Te Anau)
Fiordland is one of the wettest places on earth, and rain is part of the show rather than a reason to stay away. September is the harder month, late in the avalanche season when the Milford Road can shut at short notice, and December turns unsettled just as the crowds and the sandflies arrive. Book the Great Walks the day bookings open.
Top things to do in Milford Sound (Te Anau)
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Milford Sound cruise - out to the Tasman Sea and back
scenic 👍 PopularThe standard trip runs about an hour and three quarters from the wharf at Deepwater Basin down the fiord and back, passing Mitre Peak, Stirling Falls, the seal colony near Dale Point and, some days, bottlenose dolphins. Boats nose right in under the falls. Overnight cruises stay in Harrison Cove once the day fleet has gone.
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Milford Road and the Homer Tunnel - the drive in
scenic 👍 PopularState Highway 94 from Te Anau is as much the attraction as the fiord: beech forest along the Eglinton Valley, the Mirror Lakes, tussock flats at Knobs Flat, then a climb into a cirque and a raw unlined portal driven straight through the divide. The tunnel is one lane and signal-controlled, and kea work the car park at the eastern end.
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Milford Track - four days to Sandfly Point
hiking ⭐ Highly recommendedFifty-three kilometres from the head of Lake Te Anau over McKinnon Pass to the fiord, with a side trip to Sutherland Falls. One direction only, fixed dates, three huts and a capped number of walkers a day in the booked season. The pass is exposed and the valleys flood, and its reputation as the finest walk in the world is older than the road.
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Kayaking the fiord - at water level under the walls
adventure ⭐ Highly recommendedGuided trips launch early or late, when the cliffs are quiet and the day boats are elsewhere, and paddle under waterfalls that look ordinary from a cruise deck and enormous from a kayak. Cold, wet, and the best way to feel the scale of the place. Trips also run on Doubtful Sound and Lake Te Anau.
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Te Anau Glowworm Caves - across the lake to Te Ana-au
nature wildlife 👍 PopularA launch crosses Lake Te Anau to a limestone system still being cut by an underground river, known to Maori and rediscovered by Europeans in 1948. You walk in past a roaring waterfall, then drift in silence on a punt beneath a ceiling of glowworms. Evening departures are the usual ones.
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Key Summit - the Routeburn's best short day
hikingFrom The Divide on the Milford Road, a steady three-hour return climb through beech to an alpine bog garden of tarns and boardwalk, with three valleys below you: the Hollyford, the Greenstone and the Eglinton. The finest half day in Fiordland when the cloud lifts, and not worth the drive when it does not.
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Kepler Track - the ridge above Te Anau
hikingA Great Walk that starts and finishes near town, climbing from lakeside beech to a long exposed ridge past Luxmore Hut and a cave you can walk into. Three or four days as a circuit, or a hard day out to Luxmore and back with a water taxi across to Brod Bay.
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Milford Discovery Centre - black coral at Harrison Cove
nature wildlifeA floating observatory moored in the fiord, reached by a short boat transfer, where you descend to windows well below the surface. Fresh water stained dark by tannin sits on top of the sea here, so deep-water species including black coral live shallow enough to see without diving.
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Lake Marian and Gertrude Saddle - the steep side trips
hikingTwo harder walks off the Hollyford and Milford roads: Lake Marian, a hanging-valley tarn ringed by peaks, about three hours return, and Gertrude Saddle, a marked route rather than a track, with slabs, cables and real exposure near the top. Both want settled weather and neither is a stroll.
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Te Anau Bird Sanctuary - takahe at close range
nature wildlifeA small lakeside aviary run by the Department of Conservation, home to takahe, the flightless bird thought extinct until it was found alive in the Murchison Mountains above this lake in 1948. Open to walk through on the way out to the control gates and the Kepler.
Best areas to stay in Milford Sound (Te Anau)
$ Budget $$ Mid-range $$$ Premium
Te Anau lakefront
First-time visitors $$Small lake town, the region's only real base
Explore hotels in Te Anau lakefront →
Te Anau Downs
Track walkers $$Roadside lodge on a bare lake shore
Explore hotels in Te Anau Downs →
Manapouri
Quiet and Doubtful Sound $Sleepy village on a wilder lake
Explore hotels in Manapouri →
Milford Sound
Dawn on the fiord $$$One lodge at the head of the fiord
Explore hotels in Milford Sound →
Live nightly prices from Booking.com, Agoda and others, centred on Milford Sound (Te Anau)
Getting to & around Milford Sound (Te Anau)
Getting there
Fly into Queenstown, then about two hours by road or coach to Te Anau, and two more to the fiord
Flight
Queenstown Airport (ZQN)
Queenstown Airport at Frankton is the practical gateway: roughly 170 km and about two and a quarter hours to Te Anau by hire car or scheduled coach. Invercargill is a similar drive with fewer flights. From Te Anau the Milford Road adds two hours more, with no fuel along it.
Coach
Te Anau
Scheduled coaches link Te Anau with Queenstown in about two and a quarter hours, and with Invercargill and Dunedin. Most Milford day services also run straight through from Queenstown.
Drive
Te Anau
SH94 from Queenstown via Mossburn, or north from Invercargill across the Southland plains. Chains must be carried on the Milford Road in winter and spring, and that road closes for avalanche control at short notice.
Flight
Milford Sound Aerodrome
Fixed-wing and helicopter scenic flights land beside the fiord from Queenstown, Wanaka and Te Anau. They are the fast alternative to the drive, and the first thing cancelled when cloud sits on the tops.
Getting around
Hire car
The only way to keep your own timetable. Fill up in Te Anau: there is no fuel on the Milford Road and none at the fiord.
TBC
Coaches and day tours
Daily services run Te Anau to Milford with a cruise attached, picking up from accommodation around town in the early morning.
TBC
Track shuttles
Booked vans serve The Divide, Te Anau Downs and the Kepler control gates, timed around the Great Walk season.
TBC
Water taxi
Launches cross Lake Te Anau to Brod Bay for the Kepler and to Glade Wharf for the start of the Milford Track.
TBC
Walking
Te Anau is small enough to cross on foot, with a lakeside path running from the town centre out to the control gates.
Free
Scenic flight
Fixed-wing and helicopter transfers into the fiord shorten the day enormously, weather permitting, and fly the Sutherland Falls on the way.
TBC
Day trips from Milford Sound (Te Anau)
Milford Sound
Full dayFiord and cruise
The reason the town exists. Two hours up the Eglinton Valley and through the Homer Tunnel to the wharf, a cruise down the fiord, then back the same way. Leave early to be on the water before the Queenstown coaches, and keep time for the Mirror Lakes and The Chasm on the return.
Getting there
car | bus | tour | flight
About 2 hr each way by road from Te Anau, or a short scenic flight
Doubtful Sound
Full dayRemote fiord
Far longer than Milford and far emptier, reached only by boat across Lake Manapouri and a road built to service an underground power station. No highway runs to it, so the day is long and the silence at the far end is the whole point. Overnight cruises go deeper.
Getting there
car | ferry | bus | tour
20 min drive to Manapouri, a lake crossing, then a bus over Wilmot Pass
Key Summit
Full dayAlpine day walk
The first climb of the Routeburn Track, done as a return walk from the Milford Road. Beech forest up to an alpine wetland of tarns and boardwalk with three valleys spread below. Track shuttles drop and collect at The Divide if you have no car.
Getting there
car | bus | walk
1 hr 15 drive to The Divide, then about 3 hr return on foot
Lake Marian
Half dayHanging valley tarn
A swingbridge and a cascade start it, then a steep root-and-rock climb through forest to a tarn held in a cirque under the Darran Mountains. Rougher than its length suggests and usually muddy, and one of the finest turnarounds in the park.
Getting there
car | walk
About 1 hr drive to the Hollyford Road, then 3 hr return on foot
Te Anau Glowworm Caves
Half dayGlowworm caves
A launch crosses Lake Te Anau to caves known to Maori and rediscovered in 1948, where a punt glides under a ceiling of glowworms. Afternoon and evening departures, and one of the few things here that works whatever the weather is doing outside.
Getting there
ferry | tour
About 45 min across the lake by launch from the Te Anau waterfront
A little history of Milford Sound (Te Anau)
Ngai Tahu knew the fiord as Piopiotahi and came for tangiwai, the translucent pounamu found at Anita Bay near its mouth, on seasonal journeys over passes Europeans took another century to find. Cook sailed past the entrance in 1770 without going in, doubting he could work a ship back out against those winds, and it was a sealer, John Grono, who first took a vessel inside and named it Milford Haven after his home in Wales.
The tourist route was cut from the Te Anau side. Donald Sutherland settled alone at the head of the fiord in 1877 and found the falls that carry his name; Quintin McKinnon crossed the pass from the Clinton Valley in 1888, and within twenty years the Spectator in London had called the resulting walk the finest in the world. The road took far longer. The Homer Tunnel was begun as depression relief work with hand tools in 1935 and did not carry traffic until 1954. Fiordland became a national park in 1952 and part of the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage area in 1990, and Te Anau, once a farming settlement, now empties and fills with the walking season.
Ngai Tahu travel to Piopiotahi for tangiwai pounamu from Anita Bay at the fiord entrance
Cook sails past the entrance without entering, wary of the winds off the walls
The sealer John Grono takes a ship inside and names it Milford Haven
Donald Sutherland settles at the head of the fiord and later finds Sutherland Falls
Quintin McKinnon crosses the pass from Te Anau, completing the Milford Track route
Takahe, believed extinct, are found alive in the Murchison Mountains above Lake Te Anau
Fiordland National Park is established, the largest in the country
The Homer Tunnel opens to traffic and the road finally reaches the fiord
Fiordland is inscribed within the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage area
Know before you go
Payment
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Wifi
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Power
Type I
230 V, 50 Hz
Dialing
+64
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FAQs about Milford Sound (Te Anau)
▸ When is the best time to visit Milford Sound?
January to March is the settled stretch: long evenings, the Milford Road at its most reliable and the Great Walks in full swing, and it is also the busiest. The booked Great Walk season itself runs from late October to late April. Outside it the road can close for avalanche control at short notice and the tracks become alpine trips.
▸ Can you visit Milford Sound as a day trip from Queenstown?
Yes, and it is the most common way people see it, but it is a long day: roughly four hours each way, so coaches leave before dawn and get back after dark. Staying in Te Anau cuts the drive to about two hours each way and puts you at the fiord before the Queenstown buses arrive.
▸ Do you have to book the Milford Track in advance?
Yes. Huts are booked, numbers are capped and the season's bookings open months ahead, then go in minutes for the good dates. The Kepler and Routeburn are only slightly easier. Day walks such as Key Summit need no booking at all, and a Milford cruise can usually be arranged a day or two out.
▸ Does it always rain in Milford Sound?
More or less. It is one of the wettest inhabited places on earth, with rain on the majority of days and metres of it a year. That is rather the point: hundreds of temporary waterfalls appear on the walls within minutes of a downpour, and the boats still run. Bring a real jacket and go anyway.
▸ How do you get to Milford Sound without a car?
Easily. Coaches run daily from Queenstown and Te Anau to the wharf, most of them with a cruise included, and track shuttles cover the trailheads at The Divide, Te Anau Downs and the Kepler control gates. Scenic flights land at the airstrip beside the fiord. Nothing here runs on public transport; it is all booked services.
▸ Is Milford Sound expensive?
Fiordland is not cheap. Cruises, flights, hut nights and Doubtful Sound trips are all priced for a place with one road in, and Te Anau's beds climb steeply over summer. The walking, the lookouts and the roadside stops on the way through cost nothing, and holiday parks and campervans take the sting out.