Back in Queenstown and really almost at the end of the trip. This website says 6 days, 8 hours and 6 minutes which is pretty accurate on the time of writing. But let's not focus on that, let's focus on what happened since I wrote my last entry in Te Anau. (Correctly pronounced like tIanau and not ti-anAU what you might exped.) Meanwhile I try to upload some new pictures as the last films are nicely put onto CD as well. (And that dit cost me an arm and a leg at one photoshop but hey, that's too bad. At least you get what you want, pretty pictures from New-Zealand.)
So I did do the Doubtfull Sound trip. There is not much to do in Te Anau and I really wanted to be able to compare the Doubtfull and the Milford sound as I heard they where totally different. Well, they are. Doubtfull Sound is much more mellow than Milford, less steep mountains and covered with forest, plus that Doubfull around 4x as big is as Milford. It was an amazing day, starting crossing the lake, then into the hydro-powerstation which was really impressive, completely underground and very very noisy. Then over a snowy pass where we had the first glimpse of Doubtfull from a stunning height. Down to the harbour and onto another boat for a 4 hours cruise over Doubtfull with at the end (because the sea was extremely gentle that day) a rock full of NZ Fur-Seals. We approached the rock 'till about 2 meters and had a terrific view of the seals. And then it was time to go back, all the way into Doubtfull, over the pass and cross the lake and back to Te Anau. Starting at 8:45am and back at 6:30pm with a small but affordable ($130,-) operator on 2 small boats and just 11 people. Apart from an ADHD 12yo kiddy the cruise was marvellous. Way better than a stuffed boat with 200 people on it. The whole group was very close and I had some great conversations there though it was pretty cold on top of the boat.
Next day it was time to get the Kiwibus again to Milford and do the Milford-cruise but as the road conditions wheren't to good they had to skip the early boat-trip and went on the trip which didn't include the underwater observatory. Lucky me, I already planned to stay an extra day in Milford and had the chance to go onto the boat the next day, which off course I did and therefore DID go to the underwater observatory. The first night I spent playing chess in the hostel with a m'te I met on an earlier kiwi-bus, then the next day (sunday) we took the Milford Cruise together. Indeed there is a massive difference between the 2. Milford had very, very sheer rock faces. Very impressive. The boat capable of 150+ passengers only had a whopping 10 people on board and Milford's water was really mellow so we had a fabulous crouse again WITH the observatory. The last one was really sweet, taking you down to 8 meters below waterlevel and there you could see what you otherwise only discover when you go SCUBA diving there. Unfortunately the SCUBA diving was closed for the winter but this was at least the closest I could get and I did see some black-coral and other interesting stuff down there. All the way out to the sea and almost getting blowed off the upper deck and getting REALLY cold as it was sunny but it's still winter down here. On the way back we had a nice shower under one of the permanent waterfalls, icy cold but a very cool experience. The kicker came at the end, a troop of ~10 dolphins following our boat so close that I actually managed to get some sweet closeups of the second most intelligent creatures on earth. (If you don't understand what I mean, read The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy!) The night we spent in the local pub watching the rugby game (B&I Lions vs Allblacks, the Allblacks squashed the Lions with 21-3, WHOOOHOOO!). I'm not really into rubgy but I'm starting to like it and it's always good to have some people around. Besides, Milford is really small, 50 inhabitants, 1 hostel, 1 pub and a massive harbour for the 1500-2500 people visiting the sound every day. BTW "sound" is not the right term, a sound is a flooded river and this is a flooded glacier bed. So it should be called a fjord instead, but hey, we're in Kiwiland ;-P
And yesterday I got the Kiwibus back to Queenstown for the last leg of my trip. Pickup at 3pm at the harbour and back in Queenstown at 7:30pm. The hostel I took was not the best one, Discovery Lodge is clean but it's a bit too clinic for me. But it was a familiar place and next-door to a bar. But too bad, no 8-bed cheap dorms available for 2 nights so I had to go for a 6-bed dorm which is $2,- per night more expensive... Ah well, I won't die from $4,- and a 6-bed dorm is a little more spacious than a 8-bed plus that worst-case I only have to wake up 5 people instead of 7 when leaving way too early as this morning where I had my alarm clock at 7am and left the hostel at 7:45 after a nice hot shower. (Story follows in a couple of minutes...)
With a bit of luck I'll arrive in Christchurch tomorrow but some bastard busdriver forgot to book me on that bus so when confirming my seat for tomorrow I heard that I could only be put on standby. AGAIN! That sucks, means that I have to be at the pickup-point 300 meter from my hostel at 9am with the risk I have to return to my hostel again and miss out one of my 2 planned Christchurch days. We'll see.
Murf | 27 Jun 2005 (Mon), 04:53 @ storyName and Email adres are required. Not because I like to harvest email adresses, but because I like to know who you are. Comment to a response I do rarely unless I find a feedback2feedback for MovableType. Don't worry, your email adress is at a clever way protected against harvesters so that won't become a problem.