Our activities have been primarily focussed around driving, stopping for a walkabout, driving some more, finding somewhere to park the car for the night, and dodging sandflies.
First major stop after Queenstown was Milford Sound. We strung out the drive from Queenstown to Milford to an overnight affair, and slept at the foot of the Kepler track. This wouldn't be a particularly noteworthy event, except that it was here where Glen caught a glimpse of a kiwi foraging in the little tree-sheltered dirt parking lot.
The following night we stayed at a campsite in the Fiordland (yep, that's how they spell it) national park. The evening was quite enjoyable, we built a fire and made bannock, and accidentally left one of the lights in the car on all night. The end result was that Glen had to find a German - they're everywhere here - to hitch a ride back to Te Anau so that we could get a service man to boost our very, very dead battery. None of the campers in the site had jumper cables, so we were left with little option other than footing the bill for having a serviceman come all the way out to our campsite to give us some power. And thanks to the time all this took, we had to cancel our day cruise through the Milford fjords and re-book for the next day.
Spending an extra day in Milford wasn't exactly a hardship. The place is staggeringly beautiful, and due to the rain that we got during our visit there were hundreds of waterfalls pouring down the mountains. The drive through the Homer Tunnel was very, very cool. There's nothing else like it - you drive right through the base of a mountain via a tunnel that's about 1.2 kilometers long. Once you get to the Milford side of the tunnel and look back, all that can be seen is a huge, impassable, horse-shoe shaped wall of mountain. Driving through the tunel is creepy and surreal and very fun!
There is virtually nowhere to stay in Milford and no food stores, but we did come across a hostel where we could park and sleep in the car for a small fee while getting access to their showers and kitchens. The hostel also boasts that they are "the only store in Milford Sound", which is quite true. They have a small stock of canned food, just-add-water meals, basic cooking supplies, and snacks. The prices were outrageous, of course, but as our supper supplies were basically limited to peanut butter and jam sandwiches with apples for dessert, we decided to buy some soup anyway. We were dying for a hot meal and this point. I definitely think that the hostel's price for using a parking space is ludicrous ($15 per person), but the hostel itself was very nice, and it was great being able to have a hot shower, a hot meal, and hang out in the very comfy lounge while the sandflies hurled themselves at the exterior windows. Plus, we got to see our first kea - they're the world's only alpine parrot. They are a very intelligent and have a fondness for stealing food and ripping rubber window linings and windshield wipers off cars.
Our cruise through the Milford fjords was magnificent. We took the Milford Sound Red Boat Cruises "Discover More" cruise, which lasted three hours and included lunch and a visit to the very, very cool underwater coral reef observatory located in the fjord itself. The trip was fantastic, we got completely soaked by waterfalls, and watched huge bottlenose dolphins jumping and coursing alongside our boat. The Milford bottlenose dolphins are known for being particularly large because of their sheltered environment, and they were smack alongside the boat, probably about 10 feet down from where we were leaning over to gawk at them. Happily there were no sandflies out on the water.
We headed back towards Te Anau after our Cruise, and drove along the Southern Scenic highway coastal route from Te Anau to Invercargill. We didn't see anything in Invercargill that made us want to stay overnight, but we did stop for dinner. Afterwards we went south from Invercargill to Bluff, which has been called the arsehole of the universe, and for good reason. That was, without a doubt, the most butt-ugly place I've ever seen. The drive in was depressing, and there was little else to look at other than dilapidated houses along the roadside and huge industrial plants and sulphur piles in the harbour. Once we got into the town itself, we turned right around and left immediately.
The remainder of that evening passed uneventfully. We drove in the dark for some time, unable to find a suitable rest stop to park the car for the night. Eventually we made our way to the very, very isolated Slope Point, which is the southernmost point on the south island of New Zealand. It was pitch black at this time, so no walking to the actual point itself. We were far too tired to do any walking anyway, so we bedded down for the night and went straight to sleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment