Fiordland

Boom.
That's where all my backups went.
I drove out of the Homer tunnel, now suddenly the Claddau Valley in front of me, and I really came to tears !! I was so overwhelmed by the appearance of nature!

This happened to me the first time since I entered the prayer room of the Sheik Lotfallah Mosque in Isfahan. Of course I've seen dozens of other great things in the meantime, and it's not about whether that was better or anything ... No, I was just so unexpectedly attacked by this emotional attack. Fies!
Nevertheless, or even better, nice.

But this pleasant escalation had gradually built up (like every good climax):
The long drive to Fiordland National Park, the drive along Lake Te Anau, the passage through the Eglinton Valley, the effect of the flanking mountains, one row behind the other, the view of the Hollyford River Valley ...

First, I went to Marian Lake. The enchanting mountain lake can be reached by a short hike along a stream (sometimes with a fairly torrential current).

The next day took me to the Gertrude saddle. The hike a highlight: in the morning still in clouds, which has made the whole thing more intense (where do I have to go?), Later, in perfect weather and therefore perfect grip on the bare rock. The fact that this is a completely different shoe when it is wet is evidenced by the many clear warning signs that refer to the deaths at these places. The view from the saddle and valley / the valleys behind it: madness.

And then the rest of the way through the somewhat sinister Homer Tunnel and then the Claddau Valley Valley to the world famous Milford Sound - the most famous fjord in the national park.
Unfortunately, as in the alpine photos below, the photos can not really convey the dimensions and the effect. The Stirling waterfall in the video is 150 meters high, which alone is the hammer. But in the photos, I photographed the waterfall again from a distance with the nearest neighboring rock ... If mountains sometimes rise up to 1700 meters out of the water, the waterfall suddenly looks very small again.

Uff.
Surely you can spend weeks and years in Fiordland National Park, after all, the tours along Milford Hwy are only a fraction of the whole. I can well imagine now that the Milford Track (the very expensive multi-day hike) is actually the "best hike in the world", as the saying goes.
Maybe another time.