We did this run in September 2010 during the SUPER storm that hit southland doing a lot damage and killing lots of livestock. The road had been closed for a week before we arrived due to the snow but opened the morning we had free to go to the Sound.
The forest was full of snow and the snow became sold from Knobbs flat. The roads were no stopping for kilometers from the tunnel due to the avalanche risk. I filmed the same section of the trip but made the mistake of taking my sunglasses off to make filming easier. When we entered the tunnel, there were no traffic control because of the avalanche danger so you just drove straight in without stopping, we could not see a thing.
I put the camera, still running, on my lap then said a very bad word when I realised there was a truck in the tunnel coming towards us. The tunnel is wide enough to pass in , thank goodness, and after a minute i picked up the camera again and realised that the low light system on the video camera could see clearly for much further then we could. The exit to The tunnel was surrounded with icicles and the snow on the way out was touching the bottom of the road signs. It was one on the most amazing things we had ever seen. Coming from Queensland we had never seen snow so this was one hell of an introduction.
Speaking to the people that worked at Milford we found out that some tourists had been trapped for the week the road was closed and had spent it in their camper van in the car park.
On the boat trip we had our answer to the question, could we stop in the avalanche zone to photograph. We saw about a half a dozen avalanches happen in the mountains from the boat.
The road was closed just after we got through the tunnel on the way out and no one was able to get in for several days after. Some days you just get lucky.
Thanks for the view in another season. We will have to go back and we shall see a whole other country.
Trip stats. 12 hours video, 4500 still photographs.
