Screw Cleveland, Fiordland Rocks

Friday

After a full day in the car we were all happy to set up base camp for a few days at the YHA in Te Anau. [which is apparently Maori for home of the pants-eating children’s slide] It is a great little YHA with clean everything, ample cooking facilities, and a four person room that we were able to get for the four of us (after sweet talking the nice backpacker who had been set up in the room but graciously agreed to swap so we could all stay together). The little lake town has a couple of grocery stores which have served us well for dinners and a nice little field where we were able to throw the disc around a bit.

Saturday

Our foray into Fiordland started out with a trip to Milford Sound (improperly named as it is actually a fiord, which basically means it was formed by glaciers and is visually amazing). The drive from Te Anau to Milford is so scenic that we were “chased” from one vista we had stopped to photograph because they were shooting a car commercial and the helicopter was waiting for us to move. [the man who asked us to move along was actually very nice about it and told us to finish taking our pictures first] Mountains, mirror lakes, golden fields for variety, and of course sheep, there was no gap in the scenery.

Once we arrived at Milford Sound we loaded up for our cruise, which was on an old-school sailboat style ship, though it was motor powered. First to get on the boat, we staked out a prime location in a front corner of the upper deck and were rewarded with non-stop gorgeous views. I know what you’re thinking, “it can’t all be this scenic,” but you are wrong, traveling through Fiordland is like constantly being in front of a poster. Imagine imposing mountains dropping straight down to beautiful water, with the occasional waterfall thrown in to up the ante to the next level. Oh, and the mountainsides are lush and green due to the algae and moss that grows, providing enough of a base for plants and even trees to get some roots down. The trees have to hold each other up though, and once in a while heavy rain or simply time cause one to fall taking its neighbors along with it (a treevalanche of sorts), resulting in a bare gash down the side of the cliff which can take decades to regrow.

After our voyage at sea, the real adventure began as we decided a quarter tank was enough to make the whole return trip (there are no petrol stations between the Sound and town). There is no feeling quite like that when the Empty Tank light comes on with 30km of mountainous up and down road left to go. Thanks to some super efficient driving from Sue and Jen though, we managed to coast into the gas station in town, and didn’t even have to get out and push. Exhausted, we ended the night with a taco meal that was somehow shopped for, prepared, and eaten all in less than an hour. Go team.

Sunday

The only thing that could have topped Milford Sound was Doubtful Sound. (also actually a fiord, apparently the early explorers who named things didn’t know the difference) We got up bright and early for a kayak adventure. Well early anyway, it was dark and cloudy for the drive to Manapouri which was a little worrisome, but that worry soon disappeared along with the clouds.

There are no roads that go all the way to Doubtful Sound, so we had to take a boat ride across Lake Manapouri to a bus ride along the Wilmot Pass Road (which can only be reached by boat at either end) to another boat where we loaded up on the kayaks. The trip itself had so many beautiful vistas (that you are by now no doubt tired of hearing about) that it would have been a worthy day in itself, especially with the crazy fog and low clouds for the morning trip and the falling sun for the return, but that was merely the transportation, the real show started once we got on the kayaks.

We knew it could only be a good sign when we spotted a pod of dolphins not ten minutes after getting into the water. They were playfully jumping around across the Sound when we first spotted them, and we paddled a little closer while still keeping a respectful distance and watched (and listened to) them until they started moving again and passed right by us. They are beautiful, and surprisingly large, creatures when seen up close. These were bottle-nose dolphins, just like Flipper. And they liked us so much, they came back to see us two more times, once from a distance while we were eating lunch, and once more near the end of our afternoon kayaking session when they passed right by us again.

What really set the Doubtful Sound adventure apart though was the blissfulness. The views were amazing, as were the views at Milford, but experiencing them at sea level, floating on perfectly still waters, with no other tourists in site (we saw maybe one helicopter and one or two other boats in the entire six hours or so we were kayaking), the only sounds that of cascading water falls and passing dolphins or gulls or the occasional leaping fish - you can start to believe you’re the only people in the world. We really lucked out with the weather too, it rains 205 days out of the year there (apparently it is the third rainiest spot in the world), but we had a beautiful clear day the whole time. We still managed to get a bit wet though due to a bit of a splashing fight instigated by the tour guide, and Chris went for a quick dip sans wetsuit at the end of the day – the water as you might imagine was cold.

Fiordland was an amazing experience and will be very hard to top, but we’re going to try anyway. Next up is Queenstown, which we got a brief taste of when we stopped for lunch on the way through on Friday. We are looking forward to a more thorough visit.

Hope you enjoy the super-sized blog. It was tough to make cuts from this crop!