I've been a little negligent in these journals recently, but now that I'm back in the land of cheap internet, stay tuned, because you'll get a new tale and new pictures (links to the right, as always!) every three days until I come home. So stay tuned! Anyway, forging on:
It was four hours back to Queenstown on a bus, and after an exquisite
celebratory dinner, we felt well justified in sleeping in. But we had
to drive back the exact same way the next day, and a bit further to get
to Milford Sound, one of the world's most spectacular fiords, for a
cruise. But we didn't calculate how long this "bit further" part would
take, and so we missed the cruise, but fortunately got on the next one,
which also fortunately coincided with a break in the seemingly endless
drizzle (but not the clouds). Despite all this, Milford Sound, as so
many places in New Zealand have before it, beat expectations once
again. In fact, the recent rain may have made it better, because so
many of the several-dozen waterfalls tumbling down the sides of the
fiord, some of them roaring huge, are only fleeting and temporary, and
only come with the rain. But the really amazing thing about this place
was the sheerness and incredible height of the mountain-cliffs that
make this a fiord. The tops of some were a mile high, and no slope or
anything, just a sheer drop. Would've made a great bungee-jump or
canyon swing...
The
wind picked up as the cruise ended, and then it started raining again
as we left, going down the Milford Sound road for the third time. It
wouldn't be the last.
After that we finally had a perfect
blue sky day, which was good because we had a tour to kayak down
another fiord, Doubtful Sound. This one is quite out of the way, and
required a boat ride across a lake, followed by a bus ride to the fiord
itself. This one didn't have nearly as many waterfalls, probably
because of the sunny day. The carved mountains that made up the fiord
may not have been quite as tall as at Milford, but I think there were
more of them - Doubtful Sound is much more extensive. And it's quite a
good experience to be out on the water, of course, even though it put
us on the warpath of an angry seagull protecting her nearby nest.
The
day continued to be so impossibly sunny, even when we returned to town,
that it seemed silly not to do something else. So we went back on the
Milford road, for the fourth time. But for only the first time,
the true beauty was revealed, in the golden-red evening sun under
finally cloudless skies. Those amazingly beautiful wildflowers that are
every shade of color from purple to pink seemed even brighter, and then
there were the mountains - amazing across the wildflower floodplains,
and then truely awe inspiring close up, with their immense snow covered
faces looming straight up ahead. This was the real New Zealand, the way
it needs to be seen. At one lookout, we could even see the ridge we had
hiked along for the Routeburn track, and the beautiful valley below,
visible now where it hadn't been before. And then, despite ourselves,
we had driven all 190 kilometers (120 miles) that evening to Milford
Sound to see the sun set against the great mountain at the sound's
head, Mitre Peak. It wasn't until 11 that we returned to Te Anau, but
the best scenery available in New Zealand made it well worth it.
Despite the late end, it was an early start the next day to take full advantage of this sunny spell. The plan was to do part of
the Kepler Track, another "Great Walk" like the Routeburn. It required
a water taxi across the lake to the start of the track, which climbed
through forest seemingly forever before opening to alpine scrub and
amazing views of the lake and the snowcapped mountains rising straight
up, fiordlike, on the other side. We continued until the trail started
to descend, because after all we had to go back the same way we came,
and just barely made it in time for the water taxi.
The sun continued the next morning as we cruised along the
southern edge of New Zealand. But instead of enjoying it, we explored a
cave. I'd be slapping myself for doing this, but this cave wouldn't
have been possible in rainy conditions, because it would flood. What
was cool about it, for a caving buff like me, is that you can just go
in and explore it at will, free of charge. And this one, unlike the
small cave near the Pancake Rocks, just went on and on, chamber after
chamber, with plenty of tight squeezes and crawlspaces in between. It
was also home to more glowworms than I had seen at the "adventure cave"
and therefore more than I had ever seen.
We wizzed past a
multitude of sights and attractions in order to traverse the south
coast in one day, but did stop at the most southerly point on the South
Island (but not New Zealand...the third largest island, Stewart Island,
is even further south) which is also the "highest" latitude I've ever
reached. And then, we drove out to a truly beautiful place, Nugget
Point, where there are supposedly elephant seals. The weren't, but we
did enjoy the view of the wave-smashed and kelp fringed islands
sprinkled off of the end of the point, as well as the cliff-faced
coasts on either side. And then, on a beach next to the parking lot,
was a real sight: this is where yellow eyed penguins, the rarest kind
in the world, nest. Late afternoon is when they come back from the sea,
and while waiting in the viewing hut for this to happen with a pair of
binoculars, I'd never felt more like David Attenborough. One waddled
halfway out of the surf and then scuttled back in a desperate, pathetic
"run" when he caught sight of a gargantuan sea lion lazing on the
beach. And then, just as dad was about to drag me away so we could keep
going, a pair came out of the surf and all the way across the beach to
some rocks where their nest was. A really amazing way to end the day.
That
night we got to Dunedin, and the next day I stupidly insisted on going
to the Otago Peninsula to see Albatrosses, (which weren't readily
visible) and then going surfing, (though there weren't any waves)
instead of going on to Mt. Cook. But because we dawdled, by the time we
did get there the clouds had moved in again, and they only got worse
the day after that (Christmas), which was a disappointing way for dad
to end his trip, and definitely a bummer for me as well. On Dec. 26th
there was enough sun to see one last sight of the Alps north of Cook,
but not the mighty mountain itself.
I spent the rest of the week
until New Year's Eve in Christchurch, planning, plotting, and writing
heaps to keep my loving fans entertained. New Year's was going to be
spent at a music festival right in the middle of the mountains of Abel
Tasman National Park, where you may recall I had been before. Of
course, now that I was in a city and it didn't matter, the weather was
perfect every day. I tried to rent a car to get to the festival a day
early and take advantage, but they had none, and I was lucky to get one
when I did.
This whole trip I had been longing for a native cultural experience - that was coming next.
