The Road to Milford Sound
Visually, this is perhaps the most spectacular rode I have ever ridden. The route winds for miles through the Cleddau Valley with the mountains that separate us from the fjord looming ever closer. The final stretch climbs up to 3000 feet before descending through the Homer Tunnel and onward down to sea level. Many locals had warned us of the tunnel. Begun in 1935 by 5 dudes with pickaxes, the Homer tunnel is over a kilometer long, raw hole through the granite mountain. It descends (fortunately for us) at a 10% grade and only wide enough for one-way traffic, so there are stoplights at either end that alternate the direction of travel.
After conquering the climb (oof! tough!) we readied our lights and approached the queue of a few cars waiting at the tunnel entrance. Pretty soon it was our turn and we rolled into the void. Instantly everything was black. There was no light at the end of the tunnel and I couldn’t see shit. not Mal, not my headlight, not even the car in front of us let alone Mal . Just blindly hurtling through a hole in the mountain, picking up speed, no big deal.
In between repeatedly hitting the button on my light and trying to eco-locate Mal, l realized that it probably would have been a good idea to take off my sunglasses before entering the tunnel from hell. What a kook! After removing my shades I could see faintly the jagged walls, the water filtering through various cracks in the enormous mountain above, and finally, a pin-prick of light in the distance.
And yeah, I’m would bet a thousand people come to see Milford Sound every day, carried by the busload. But I like to think that our visit was a little different and our experience a bit richer. All I know is the excitement that we felt exiting the other side of that tunnel and seeing that flying road of perfect tarmac wind back down to sea level through the most ridiculously steep and awesome valley I have ever seen.