Milford Sound in Fjordland. Cruise boat out on the fjord. New Zealand. : 無料・フリー素材/写真
Milford Sound in Fjordland. Cruise boat out on the fjord. New Zealand. / denisbin
| ライセンス | クリエイティブ・コモンズ 表示-改変禁止 2.1 |
|---|---|
| 説明 | Mossburn. By road Milford Sound is just under 290 kms from Queenstown but as the crow flies it is less than 100 kms. With a couple of stops it takes about 4 hours to complete the journey but weather can be changeable and occasionally bad whether closes the road over the high part of the Southern Alps. To boost tourism there have been proposals to build a massive tunnel to link Queenstown and Milford Sound but the government has outlawed that idea as apart from the cost it would not be compatible the World Heritage site listing of the region. Another proposal is for a new road part way with a gondola connection up the mountains. The difficulties of the long road journey are compensated for by the scenic wonders of the trip, let alone the spectacular scenery of Milford Sound at the end. After all when Rudyard Kipling visited New Zealand in 1891 he declared that Milford Sound was the Eighth Wonder of the World. We shall see. There are few towns on the road journey but the first is Mossburn a tiny town of 200 residents. It is more than a third of the way to Milford Sound. Mossburn claims to be the Deer Capital of NZ. Most of the deer are farmed or caught from the wild in Fjordland by helicopter pilots. The main agriculture of the district is dairying. An early pioneer George Chewings discovered the Chewings fescue grass here in the 1890s. It is now grown around the world as a lawn, especially on golf greens. Chewings fescue is grown commercially in the Southland region. Mossburn was lucky to get a branch railway line from Lumsden in 1887. It was needed for the transportation of logs and timber but it closed in 1982 after the Manapouri Hydroelectric power station was completed near Te Anau. Its last main purpose was to transport materials for this massive project. The Railway Hotel built in 1922 memorialises this railway line from the past. (The Manapouri Hydroelectric Station is the largest hydro station in NZ and it was completed in 1971 to provide cheap power to Invercargill for the Alcoa aluminium smelter works there. The power station is 200 metres below ground level and the water level in Lake Manapouri. There is no road access to the site and all workers live 35 kms across the Lake in Manapouri township. It took nearly 10 years to build the station which was enlarged in the 1990s.)Te Anau and Lake Te Anau. Te Anau is just 60 kms further on with its 2,000 inhabitants. It is picturesquely sited on the edge of Lake Te Anau which is the largest lake on the South island and the second largest of NZ after Lake Taupo in the North Island. It stretches 65 kms in length and it has the only inland fjords in NZ. The Lake is 210 metres above sea level and it is up to 417 metres deep thus much of the lake is deeper than sea level. The lake has several small islands in it. To the east are grasslands, swamps and scrublands of Manuka. On the western side of Lake Te Anau is the Fjordland wilderness and the Murchison and Kepler mountain ranges. Milford Sound is 120 kms to the north of Te Anau. Fjordland National Park is the largest in NZ and is now a world heritage site – Te Wahipounamu – a region of four major alpine NZ National Parks. Mountains within the park rise to around 2,000 metres (nearly 7,000 feet) and the coast is deeply indented with fjords. The 14 fjords of Fjordland Park are very deep U shaped valleys gouged out by the advance and retreat of glaciers in past eras. There are no roads or people living in the Fjordland Park. Australian possums and feral deer have thrived in this environment and the NZ government regularly drops poisons from helicopters to try and control their numbers. Fjordland National Park was established in 1952. The high rainfall and snowfall of the region from the prevailing moisture laden Westerlies produces a damp temperate forest environment with ferns, mosses, lichens and majestic trees where the terrain is not too steep. Fjordland is known for its waterfalls, fjords, steep sided valleys and many lakes. The mountains are mainly composed of very hard granite, gneiss and diorite. The Maori had permanent camps in the Te Anau region along Lake Te Anau and Lake Manapouri where they gathered eels and fish from the lakes and fern roots from the grasslands and forests. Although Maori did not live at Milford Sound they trekked there to obtain greenstone for their carvings. The Maori name for Milford Sound is Piopiotahi. The road which goes from Te Anau follows the lake for 29 kms and then it crosses into the Eglinton Valley. The road follows the Eglinton River for 33 kms until it passes Lake Fergus and then climbs the ranges into the upper part of the Hollyford Valley. After it leaves this valley the road climbs to its highest point at the entrance to the Homer Tunnel. It is 16 kms from the exit of the Homer Tunnel to Milford.Homer Tunnel and Milford Sound.The Homer Tunnel at 1.2 kms in length is the second longest tunnel in NZ after the Lyttelton Tunnel at Christchurch. Work began on the Homer Tunnel in 1935 but progressed slowed up and was halted during World War Two. It was finally completed as a single lane tunnel in 1954. It was named after William Homer who discovered the saddle separating the Milford Sound from the other valleys of Southland in 1889. He had suggested a road to open up Milford Sound country to the rest of NZ. The tunnel has a one in ten downwards slope from the eastern entrance. This eastern entrance is 1,200 metres above sea level which is the highest point on the Te Anau Milford road and it is where the road passes through a cîrque or amphitheatre area created by past glaciers. Milford Sound is a fjord that stretches 16 kms to the coast and it is up to 265metres deep. Amazingly the very high rainfall here creates a layer of fresh water above the sea water within the Sound. Milford Sound has up to 7 metres of rainfall a year with around 500 to 700 mm of rainfall each month of the year (i.e. 20 to 30 inches). The average maximum temperature for October is around 14 degrees. Milford Sound was named by a sealer John Grono of Milford Haven in Wales. Another early sealer Donald Sutherland was the first resident of the Sound and he pioneered a track over the mountains to Te Anau. A local waterfall is named after Sutherland. When it pours hundreds of short term waterfalls developed over the sheer rocky sides of the fjord. The sides at Milford Sound rise about 3,900 feet or 1,200 metres with several well-known peaks of this height. Mitre Peak is one of the most photographed features in NZ. It is so named because it resembles the mitre cap worn by Anglicans bishops. Mitre Peak is 5,560 feet or 1,690 m high. Other nearby peaks include the Lion (because of it shape) 4,272 feet and the Elephant (looks like an elephant’s head) 4,977 feet. |
| 撮影日 | 2016-10-21 09:42:15 |
| 撮影者 | denisbin |
| タグ | |
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| カメラ | DSC-HX30V , SONY |
| 露出 | 0.001 sec (1/1250) |
| 開放F値 | f/3.5 |