The 5 highlights:
1. Flying into Queenstown on South Island yesterday morning. It's
beautiful. And then picking up the car I rented (a Holden from
Australia, the logo is a lion, and it is bright red). I have now
mastered the art of driving on the "wrong" said of the road on
highways...which is like saying I've mastered the art of high fiving
with my left hand. I luckily do not think I will be in many congested
areas that will demand lots of turns with traffic in numerous
directions...
2. Speaking of which, I think the first sheep farm I
saw yesterday (and I saw a LOT of sheep farms yesterday between
Queenstown and Te Anau...that's about all there is) had more sheep than I
saw cars in total during 4 hours of driving. The stretch of highway
from Te Anau to the Milford Sound is about as remote as you can possibly
get. I lost cell phone service five minutes away from Te Anau, and it
never resurfaced. There are no gas stations, no cafes - basically no
signs of human life except for the occasional car, the slightly more
occasional tour buses going to and from the Sound, and some campers
scattered about.
This is considered one of the most beautiful
drives in the world, and it's certainly the most breathtaking stretch of
road I have ever been on. Driving back to Te Anau today took about 90
minutes; there are so many places to pull over, however, that
yesterday's trip along the same stretch took an extra 45 minutes. Lots
of photo opportunities. And although not beautiful, for those Googling
pictures of the highway, check out Homer's Tunnel - which goes through a
mountain, is one-lane only, and the light to enter only changes every
15 minutes.
3. Look at a map of New Zealand. Look at the area
called Fiordland on South Island. It's huge. The settlement at Milford
Sound (it does not justify the title of town) tops out at 200 people,
and there are only 5,000 maximum in this vast region. There is nothing
but forests and mountains and lakes in this area of the country.
With
the highway, however, no beaten tracks need be taken to access the
breathtaking Milford Sound - which is technically a fjord because it was
formed by glacial ice, not a river. The area was first settled by the
Maori, who found jade (or greenstone) near where the fjord meets the
Tasman Sea, and jade is precious in Maori culture. Then the Welsh came
in and hunted the seals to the brink of extinction. A guy named Donald
Sutherland (not Jack Bauer's dad) was the first person to really live
there permanently, and he set up the first tourism business there.
In
the 1950s, the New Zealand government bought the land. A hotel, cafe,
bar, and gas station were built. Trucks delivered supplies on a regular
basis. The only difference between the 1950s and today is that the hotel
is now closed (a small lodge down the street is the only other sign of
life in the area), and the gas station has not pumped gas in years;
there is also now a parking lot, and a welcome center next to the docks
where boats come and go from every day. (Except when avalanches during
the winter dump tons of snow on the highway, closing it, and isolating
the town for days and weeks at a time.) The Sound gets 6 meters of a
rain a year, so they are more than used to bringing tours out in the
pouring rain.
4. Speaking of tours, I went on one. And it was
amazing. We slept on the boat overnight, and no words or pictures can
justify the Milford Sound. (But go ahead and Google it....you'll get a
small taste). We had beautiful weather all afternoon and evening, but we
all prayed for rain when we went to bed. That's because when it's dry
there are 3 waterfalls in the sound. When it rains, hundreds of
waterfalls suddenly begin cascading down the steep sheer faces of the
towering cliffs and mountains on either side of the water. Sadly, we
woke up to rain, but barely a drizzle.
Some highlights within
this highlight reel (meta-highlights?) : seeing seals basking on the
rocks, spotting a pair of Fiordland Crested Penguin, the third rarest
species of penguin in the world, seeing the stars at night (there are a
lot of them, and the dipper is upside down), motoring to the edge of the
Tasman Sea, and sleeping under Mount Pembroke, which has a glacier on
top.
5. These highlights were in chronological order, and the
most recent adventure I had was last night back in Te Anau in the
Glowworm Caves here. It was a rainy day and night here in the small
lakeside village of 1,900 people - the Takahe capital of the country
because the species was rediscovered right across the lake in the
Murchison Mountains. Anyway, we took a boat across the lake to the
entrance of underground caves. What's amazing is that the only reason
these caves were found was because Te Anau translates loosely to 'lake
with swirling waters.' So a local in the early 1900s set out to find the
caves and he did. I cannot imagine how long it took him.
No
photos allowed here, but the caves were impressive. You walk through a
dark narrow path they've constructed underground, and the water rushing
below is so loud it's virtually impossible to hear anything. Then you
reach a makeshift dock where a boat is waiting. We all boarded, and then
the guide began maneuvering us deeper into the cave by moving hand over
hand along a chain link set up above. It was pitch black and I could
not see my hand in front of my face. But the glowworms were beautiful.
They are all in the larval stage, hanging from the ceiling, and they
glow to attract insects to eat; the brighter they glow, the hungrier
they are. It looks like looking up at the most amazing night sky,
especially in the grotto at the end of the cave. Really cool.
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