After the Kepler, we were pretty stinky. We decided to pay for a night of power, hot showers and someone else's kitchen at the Lakeview Holiday Park. There, we plugged in straight away and got to optimizing the amenities pronto. We gave Patty a clean, we did our laundry, we ate outside in the glorious weather and we rested.
We visited the free bird sanctuary in Te Anau. The NZ pigeon (Kererū in Maori) above is unfortuantely shadowed, but you can still get a gist of its size. They are white and green with a splash of magenta. When these guys fly they are unmistakable; their hefty wings make a distinct "whoop whoop whoop" as they go overhead. Inch for inch a bird couldn't be much denser than the Kererū and still be able to fly; they make sturdy branches bow when they land. But as the sign reads, these birds are invaluable for seed distribution for large-fruiting trees in the NZ forests.
We also did a night of guided star gazing that we weren't able to capture on film. Now we know how to locate the southern cross and find due south! And Orion the Hunter is upside down down here! Neat stuff.
Once we were clean and recuperated we hit the road toward Milford Sound, the northern most sound in the fiords. This is one of the wettest places on Earth in terms of rainfall, but we were somehow graced with a beautiful clear day on the drive in (we are not letting this luck with weather go unnoticed!)
The landscape on the drive down toward the warf reminded us of Yosemite with the impressive rock walls looming over us little creatures along the road.
Alex took some photos while we waited in queue for 15 minutes to enter the tunnel to Milford Sound. The tunnel is open to drive through only between 7:30 AM and 7:00 PM each day. It is the only ground route into Milford Sound. I talked to a tour guide on a boat who told me there are about 200 people who work in the hotels and cruise companies in there and they sometimes get closed in for up to a week when the weather gets bad. They have to drive in their own food, too, and the nearest grocery store is a 2 hour drive away. They typically work nine days on with five days off and have homes in two places that they share with other employees on different schedules. Interesting lifestyle.
Multiple people told us the only thing to do in Milford Sound is take a cruise, so we bit the bullet and signed up for one.
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The boat took us along one side of the sound, out as far as the Tasman Sea and back in on the other side. It would have been better (counterintuitively) to do this in the rain because countless waterfalls materialize as rainwater drains off the cliff sides. But there are a handfull of permanent ones we went through. Even one that goes straight out without falling down first.
On the boat Alex was describing to me how huge the men's room was and with more urinals he'd ever seen in one place. After the cruise he took some photo evidence to prove it to me. You can even see a polite (and probably disturbed) man behind him in the mirror who waited for him to finish. On second thought, he probably just didn't want to be a model.
The morning after our cruise we headed to Wanaka, which had been recommended by several Americans we know. We skipped Queenstown entirely because even more people told us it is a giant tourist trap meant only to drain us of our funds. Wanaka is situated alongside Lake Wanaka and beneath the foothills of the Southern Alps. It reminds me of Boulder, Colorodao in geography and in culture. But we spent only a few hours there, so it isn't exactly fair to make any generalizations.
Our one touristy activity in Wanaka was Puzzling World. They boast having the world's first "3-D Great Maze." And of course we decided to take on the "difficult challenge." Alex proved a high aptitude to mazing, at least relative to me. He had it practically mapped in his mind after one tour. I strategized by sniffing for cheese and hoping for the best, but this got me nowhere. The Great Alexandre waited for me in the yellow tower for half an hour while I found the green tower three times, the blue one twice and the red one once. But in the end, we both succeeded! (Shh, don't tell Alex that instead of finding the exit at the end I snuck out an emergency exit ;)
Inside there were several exhibits with optical illusions. This knitted piece with Einstein was trippy. The camera seems to see better, which spoils some of the awe. With naked eyes when looking straight on it looked like plain white and brown stripes. Even close up it was hard to distinguish the different stitches that makes the illusion.
There was also a room of concave faces that appeared to be convex and followed you as you walked through the room. Alex is covering one eye to improve the effect.
Alex went through the shrinking/expanding room, Alice-in-Wonderland style.
Just next to Lake Wanaka is Lake Hawea, where we spent a couple of nights in a sweet little DoC site popular with families. We parked Patty just next to a swing, which turned out to be the hot spot for 5-10 year olds. In the morning sometime around 6 AM we were awoken by a chorus of moo-ing by our neighbors you see above. My dreams were infiltrated with cow speak as I tried to sleep through it. 100ish cows can produce a lot of sound! The next day the concerto happened later in the day and we were able to see the dogs and the farmers shepherding the cows out of the pasture, presumably to be milked for the day.
We took advantage of the trails just in the campground area to let Patty stay in one place for 48 hours (That's her you can see from above. She's the farthest left white roof in her own clear pocket amidst the trees, diligently waiting for our return.) We opted for the summit hike and packed a picnic lunch.
After it was over we took a dip in the lake. The inviting blue water, as it turned out, was FREEZING. I squealed like a pig and we were both out after a single dip.
After our rest we continued Northwest to "glacier country," stopping in Franz Joseph. We opted to do one long day hike instead of seeing lots of things close to sea level. And what better to chose than Alex Knob?
Our hike up, which was about one kilometer flat and then seven straight up, was through the clouds. We knew by our lungs and legs we were going up, but the views past a few meters were white, white, white.
We kept going, hoping the fog would burn off or blow away. And in perfect timing, when we sat down to eat our lunch at the top, the view opened up before our eyes. We could see the Franz Joseph Glacier clearly as well as the impressive Southern Alps, NZ's big peaks.
In the morning we got on the road again. We knew we needed to be in Picton by the night of the 31st, but otherwise we did not have concrete plans. We had to sacrifice something. Instead of seeing Abel Tasman National Park we opted for the Queen Charlotte Track that Alex had read about on National Geographic's website. So for that, check back soon.
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