Milford Sounds
Some days when you're travellin
g, especially in New Zealand, you really feel like you're back home. This was one of them. It felt like a caravan holiday during spring half-term where everyone's pretending it really is the start of the British summer, but the persistant drizzle makes it clear that the weather has other plans. We were hardy though and we made the most of it.
First stop was Mirror Lakes, not particularly reflective today but a beautiful view of the mountains shrowded in mist nonetheless.
It was necesary to don extra safety equipment for Milford Sounds due to the extreme weather conditions, but the group was still high in spirit and enjoying the bottom third of the mountains which
we could see! If it hadn't been raining so much though the waterfalls wouldn't have been there and one waterfall in particular produced an amazing pattern in the Fijord at the bottom. We also got to see a large pod of seals hanging out on the rocks and splashing about in the water and a smaller pod of dolphins just ambling by.
That day we even got to touch snow, though having probably made its way down from the top of the mounta
in it wasn't the picture-perfect white stuff which always falls in Hollywood's England at Christmas. Whilst we were busy photographing ourselves infront of waterfalls and snow, these crazy NZ parrot-type birds started trying to bite their way into our bus! Apparently they do that if they think there is a good meal inside...in this case they w
ould have been right with 20-odd of us all-stocked for lunch and dinner.
That evening Chad and Merris made-off on a jetboat which cost all of $20 - a far cry from the $100 option in Queenstown...interestingly no-one had been told about the cheaper option at the time! Dermot and I acted as maid, getting dinner on the table for them by the time they got back - how sweet of us! Sidewalks of
New York was the film for the evening...in that part of NZ there was a choice of two channels! The film was a little strange, more like a documentary. Interesting as it was the effects of our string of party-nights were taking hold so I crashed early.
g, especially in New Zealand, you really feel like you're back home. This was one of them. It felt like a caravan holiday during spring half-term where everyone's pretending it really is the start of the British summer, but the persistant drizzle makes it clear that the weather has other plans. We were hardy though and we made the most of it.
First stop was Mirror Lakes, not particularly reflective today but a beautiful view of the mountains shrowded in mist nonetheless.
It was necesary to don extra safety equipment for Milford Sounds due to the extreme weather conditions, but the group was still high in spirit and enjoying the bottom third of the mountains which
we could see! If it hadn't been raining so much though the waterfalls wouldn't have been there and one waterfall in particular produced an amazing pattern in the Fijord at the bottom. We also got to see a large pod of seals hanging out on the rocks and splashing about in the water and a smaller pod of dolphins just ambling by.That day we even got to touch snow, though having probably made its way down from the top of the mounta
in it wasn't the picture-perfect white stuff which always falls in Hollywood's England at Christmas. Whilst we were busy photographing ourselves infront of waterfalls and snow, these crazy NZ parrot-type birds started trying to bite their way into our bus! Apparently they do that if they think there is a good meal inside...in this case they w
ould have been right with 20-odd of us all-stocked for lunch and dinner.That evening Chad and Merris made-off on a jetboat which cost all of $20 - a far cry from the $100 option in Queenstown...interestingly no-one had been told about the cheaper option at the time! Dermot and I acted as maid, getting dinner on the table for them by the time they got back - how sweet of us! Sidewalks of
New York was the film for the evening...in that part of NZ there was a choice of two channels! The film was a little strange, more like a documentary. Interesting as it was the effects of our string of party-nights were taking hold so I crashed early.
posted by Ian Matthias at
1/28/2007 05:03:00 am
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